Pale desaturated skin retouch

[dv8or]

Hi - does anyone have any idea how to achieve the skin tonality and colour that David Skyler achieves in the attached file? I have tried a variety of methods to no avail including trying to desaturate particular colours in . Any help would be much appreciated. I have included a small jpeg of one of my shots to try (admittedly this is harder as the model had a dark tanned complexion).
Marc

[Der_W]

You can try to achieve this effect with three adjustment layers of the Channel Mixer.
One set to "Screen" (~80% opacity), the next one set to "Soft Light" (~50% opacity) and the last one set to "Normal" (~30% opacity). All three of them should have the "Monochrome" check box checked. You can also try and play with the different channels.

Edit: Ups, I forgot, you should of course mask in just the skin (e.g. put them in a group with a layer mask that affects just the skin).

[dv8or]

Thanks so much for that - it definitely helped get closer - will try to use a less tanned model and see what comes of it. Interesting technique. Also, probably worth messing around with the individual layers settings to some degree too as you suggest.
Best regards
Marc

Originally Posted by Der_W

You can try to achieve this effect with three adjustment layers of the Channel Mixer.
One set to "Screen" (~80% opacity), the next one set to "Soft Light" (~50% opacity) and the last one set to "Normal" (~30% opacity). All three of them should have the "Monochrome" check box checked. You can also try and play with the different channels.

Edit: Ups, I forgot, you should of course mask in just the skin (e.g. put them in a group with a layer mask that affects just the skin).

[chas18052]

selected clothing and then apply image set to screen added mask and inverted then apply image again on skin set to screen used art history brush to bring back some color in hair/lips etc.

[dv8or]

Thanks for that Chas - looks like an effective technique although I cant say I understand the process from your description . Would you mind expanding the process a bit more if you have some time?
Thanks - Marc

Originally Posted by chas18052

selected clothing and then apply image set to screen added mask and inverted then apply image again on skin set to screen used art history brush to bring back some color in hair/lips etc.

[chas18052]

duplicate background--used quick selection tool to select her blue clothing-then add layer mask.turn off background and all you see is her clothing.click on image next to mask and go to image/apply image-select blue channel and screen mode click ok. duplicate layer 1, click on mask in layer 1 copy and ctrl i (invert).click on image in layer 1 copy go back to apply image , select red channel set to screen, turn background layer back on. click on mask in either layer 1 or layer 1 copy and adjust opacity to bring back color. or click on image in layer 1 or layer 1 copy and use history brush set at low opacity to bring back color

[Cupcake]

Did with the screen layer.
2.5 times.

[L33t]

http://alexwilsonphoto.com/blog/2006...-key-tutorial/

Maybe less opacity?