D&B of extremely dark/bright areas

[shizam1]

I'm working on a photo I took with much more contrasty light. Part of the face was edge lit, and some of the pores are pits of darkness surrounded by bright highlights.

I'm finding that my D&B curves isn't working well on those areas, because I think:

1) The curve affects the extremeties less than the mids ( due to a curve )
2) darkening white and brightening black will give gray, when instead I want a skin tone..

So my thoughts are to do frequency separation, and paint on the color I want on top of the low frequency area. Is this the best approach?

Sorry no accompanying picture at the moment, posting from my office.

[julianmarsalis]

Need a Picture worth a thousand words but yeah if using curves if your highlights or shadows are already out of range you will not affect them unless you move in the opposite direction burn highlights dodge shadows unless I am confusing the issue lol.

[lurch]

Those are the areas that you attack (carefully) with cloning or healing, before you get to the dodge and burn step.

[shizam1]

Thanks, I'll try some different techniques. As for cloning/healing, not really sure that will do what I want.