Help with even skin tones

[shizam1]

Hi, I'm trying to get better at beauty retouching and one thing I need to improve on is even skin tones.

Currently, I can remove small problem areas, like red spots around a pimple by paintint over the color with frequency separation, and that keeps the detail.

I can also do a gradient map, and that helps somewhat, though too much opacity and the colors don't look realistic any more.

Are there any other techniques? If I'm working on a photo with a large patch of messed up color, and no good sample area, I get kind of stuck...

[MacBurg]

Spend a bit more time with the gradient map, every image will require different amounts of hue/sat and brightness for each stop you use. When you really get the gradient map dialed in it can be used at 60%-80% opacity and look really good.

There must be some part of the skin in the image that has a good tone to sample off, often if you get the white balance wrong out of a Raw conversion it can make a mess of skin tones too. If you are shooting in a studio or with your own flash system you should have a white balance reference for your particular lights, also shooting a grey card is a good base to start white balance with.

[shizam1]

Ok, maybe my gradient map skills need more work then. Any tutorials out there? The only knowledge I have is from the Natalia retouching DVD, which basically shows to pick the darkest skin tone, and the lightest, push it out a bit further, make a gradient map with color blending mode, and apply a curves to it, etc.

The white balance should be spot on, since I was shooting studio and used a gray card every time I changed the lightring.

The problem I have with a sample, is around the cheek near the nose, there is a pretty large spot ( 2-3 inch square area, in real life ) that has an orange cast due to bad makeup application. Around that area the skin tones are good, but wrong luminosity, so I can't just sample and paint.

[julianmarsalis]

In that case I would separate the image using frequency separation and paint the color back in below the texture see this video from flexmanta http://newdirection.co/2010/08/18/re...y-separation-2

[shizam1]

Originally Posted by julianmarsalis

In that case I would separate the image using frequency separation and paint the color back in below the texture see this video from flexmanta http://newdirection.co/2010/08/18/re...y-separation-2

I'll have to watch that video tonight ( blocked at work ), but I'm guessing it's what I already know how to do. I do that for small mis-colored areas, where there is a proper color next to the area.

[julianmarsalis]

Cool the key I find is sample the color you like and build it up from using a low opacity brush around 10% on a layer and do the same with hue at 5% if needed on a layer above that one both above the color separation and below the high pass texture layer.....

[shizam1]

Now when you say "do the same with hue", what are you describing?

I normally do a clone tool, at 25% on a layer between the separation, sampling the color portion.

[julianmarsalis]

I will use the sample color on a layer set to Hue Blend mode and brush it in at a low opacity if needed. Depending on how hard a time I am getting in matching the tones its just more control.

[shizam1]

Thanks for that, I'll play around tonight and see how that works for me

[shizam1]

Man do I need to learn about blending modes. Hue blend mode sounds perfect, it will retain the luminosity but only affect the color.

[Godmother]

Originally Posted by MacBurg

Spend a bit more time with the gradient map, every image will require different amounts of hue/sat and brightness for each stop you use. When you really get the gradient map dialed in it can be used at 60%-80% opacity and look really good.

I disagree with that %

Monotone Skintones are never a good idea.

[Boneappetit]

This can help... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=19RRv...ayer_embedded#!

Second method is recommended, you can save it in Photoshop..

[julianmarsalis]

Originally Posted by Godmother

I disagree with that %

Monotone Skintones are never a good idea.

+1

Best video I have seen that should help a ton is derw supporting layers video he even adds and action that makes the layers it's a great watch even uses GMaps but no higher than 30% fo sure and thats max lol.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oBK83DZpdEQ

[MacBurg]

Gradient maps are far from monotone, okay 80% is a bit to strong for skin but if you have the colour stops adjusted with the right hue/sat levels 60% can work really well. There are many other methods to fix skin tones, alot depends on the image and the problems within the image.

Here's a recent thread dealing with skintones, have a read -

http://www.retouchpro.com/forums/pho...tml#post286623

[shizam1]

Thanks for all the help everyone. I'll have to play around with the gradient map some more and do the different levels and see what that does for me. Here's what I ended up with after 4 hours of work:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/shizam1...n/photostream/

[julianmarsalis]

Originally Posted by shizam1

Thanks for all the help everyone. I'll have to play around with the gradient map some more and do the different levels and see what that does for me. Here's what I ended up with after 4 hours of work:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/shizam1...n/photostream/

any chance you could show the before?

[shizam1]

Originally Posted by julianmarsalis

any chance you could show the before?

Yes, I can upload to a protected folder and put the link here tonight. I don't think the model would appreciate me putting the unretouched out there for everyone to see.

Or I can try to upload to this site, which I think I tried before with no success.

Is the same resolution fine, if not, I can go up to 21 MP.

[julianmarsalis]

Originally Posted by shizam1

Yes, I can upload to a protected folder and put the link here tonight. I don't think the model would appreciate me putting the unretouched out there for everyone to see.

Or I can try to upload to this site, which I think I tried before with no success.

Is the same resolution fine, if not, I can go up to 21 MP.

Completely understandable even just a close full res crop of the trouble skin area only would be good.

[shizam1]

Ok, here is the before and after. Each file is a crop of the face, and around 4 MB each. Or you can use the flickr option to see the smaller versions. The orange color I'm referring to is in a couple of spots, around the cheek line, running down to near the mouth. I think it was a makeup application issue. Let me know what you think

http://flickr.com/gp/shizam1/BU358K/