Photo Help needed

[MattGlossy]

My mother in law has Rosatia (sp?) In this photo it's obvious of what needs to be done. Can anyone help?

I'm putting together a special photo album for her for Christmas.

I prefer to use Paint Shop Pro 7 but have PhotoShop 5/6 as well.

Thanks in advance.

- Steven

[Rick]

She seems like a kind and wonderful woman.

Please don't take anything I say as an insult as it's not intended as so.

Normally, I refrain from taking away Moles and distinctive features unless instructed by the person it's involved with.
The features that she has is also the same features which helped shape her for what she is.

To alter one's appearence in such a manner as this *I* would consider an insult if it was done to me if someone changed a feature of mine for the sake of making a perfect life.

With that said, I made a humble try at it. I'm sure there are others are may do a better job.


Wish her a Merry X-mas from me and the rest of us.

Rick

[Doug Nelson]

Two things:

I would agree with Rick with one exception. That is, if the condition (in this case rosacea) is not constant. It's my understanding that rosacea can flare up and then disappear again. If that's the case here, that she was just caught during a time when it was active, then I have no problem with removing it. But if that's simply how she looks nowadays, it could actually draw more attention to it by removing it than by leaving it alone.

The other thing is I believe Steven is looking for the "how" rather than simply the results, so details of procedures would be appreciated (even if he doesn't, we always want to know the "how"). (good work, btw, Rick)

As to my own "how" suggestions, I'd first try picking some color from another part of her face and then painting the area in "color" mode, which would leave the details unchanged. Selection and color correction might work, but would be extremely tricky, especially considering it's a facial area, which we're very sensitive to. Should that route be attempted, I'd overselect and use a very soft selection border. The dodge tool might work if applied gently, and probably would need to be followed with the sponge tool to desaturate.

[T Paul]

I don’t have Paint Shop Pro, but this is what I would do with PhotoShop:

Make a duplicate layer of your photo. Zoom into to the areas you want to rework. Use the Rubber Stamp Tool (clone tool). Choose a small, soft-edged brush and click on an area of skin near the area you want to rework for your sample. Now move over the red skin areas and replace them with nearby sample areas.

For large areas, you can select the shape that needs to be replaced. Move the selection over an area that you want to copy. Then copy it and place it on it’s own layer above the original photo. Next, move the copy over the area you want covered. Now blur it a little and lower the opacity till it looks natural. You will also need to touch it up most likely with the rubber stamp (clone tool) and perhaps the eraser. For instance, I copied a selection of skin from the forehead area to replace the red cheek. I moved the selection over the cheek area then lowered the opacity to 70% and gave it a slight blur. Then I retouched it a bit with the eraser tool (this will allow the original photo underneath it to show through) and I used a little bit of the clone tool.

Hope this helps.

I’ve attached a quick sample showing the above…I just reworked the forehead and a bit of the cheek and chin. Note, the areas under the glasses with take some extra time and care. You will need to zoom in real close.

Note, if you are going to work with this JPEG image multiple times and save it each time, save the image as a PhotoShop file or in another non-destructive format like TIFF and BMP. Save the JPEG mode for the final product. This is because each time you save a JPEG file it compresses and you lose data, which means you lose quality. The first time you do this it might not be noticeable, but multiple JPEG compressions will degrade an image quite noticeably…or so I am told.

-T

[thomasgeorge]

Steve, You might try this:
(1) mask the affected areas
(2) move them to their own layer
(3) Sample an area of normal skin tone with the eyedropper tool
(4) With the airbrush tool set to no more than 33, mode normal, apply normal skin color to the layer with the affected portions. The key is lightly apply. Add a small amount of noise if necessary simulate grain. Allow a little of the red to show through.
(5) flatten and do light clean up with clone tool set at no more than 50.
I dont think I would try to remove all the reddish discoloration, just mute the heck out of it and minimize it. Good luck, Tom

[Sharon]

Hi Steve,

Here’s my attempt at trying to eliminate the red on your mother-in-law’s face using PS6.

1. Color Balance layer: +3,-2-30
2. Selective Color layer: -12,-100,-1,0
3. HSL layer: -12,-8,0
4. Then I added a layer on top of this in color mode and painted with a skin tone CA9387.
5. These adjustments changed to the background color, so I selected her face and copied it onto the original.
6. I sharpened with USM at a setting of 50, 1.0, 0

Hope this helps.

Sharon

[Hankster65]

Doug wrote....

"I'd first try picking some color from another part of her face and then painting the area in "color" mode, which would leave the details unchanged."

I didn't know you could do that!

Just tried it out and that has got to be one of the neatest features of Photoshop. Maybe I'm living a hollow life to get so excited, but, that little gem of a tip is *really* useful!

(My apoligies for this note being a little off subject.)

[Hankster65]

Sharon,

Your shot was *great*! I've been trying to duplicate it. (I'm using PS 5.5). What I don't understand is the "skin tone CA9387." How do you get that skin tone? Are there selections that come with PS 6 for that sort of thing? Is it a plug in of some sort? Sorry...this newby is totally lost.

[Sharon]

Hi Tim,

Thank you.

All I did to come up with the skin tone color was to sample a section of her good skin.

Hope this helps.

Sharon

[Hankster65]

Hi, Sharon,

Thanks for the reply! I'm still a little unclear, though, on just what the "CA9387" number indicates. Sorry to sound dense here.


Teacher writing on board: "There's no such thing as a dumb question."

Student: "Isn't dumb spelled with two B's?"

[jeaniesa]

Tim, I think "CA9387" is the hexidecimal number for the RGB values. If you open the color picker (click on either the foreground or background color swatches in PS), you'll see a field labeled "#" at the bottom of the left column of numbers. That's where you would enter "CA9387" - and then that color would be shown in the color patch at the top of the dialog box. As Sharon said, she got that color by using the eyedropper tool on the woman's face. I think she was just letting us all know what color the eyedropper tool picked up.
Jeanie

[Hankster65]

Ahhhh, now I get it!


Just fired up PS, and sure enough, its just as you said. I had never noticed that number before. Jeanie, thanks for clearing this up.

[Mig]

Hi Matt,

A very simple solution to this problem would be to turn it into grayscale by using the red channel and throwing the other channels away. The red channel doesn't have any problems in this particular picture. This is a quick and easy fix, and then you can colorize the photo if you want.

To do this, open the picture in photoshop and find the channels pallette. If it's not open, then (on the taskbar at the top of the photoshop) go to Window>Show Channels. Look for the red channel and click on it. Then, on the taskbar again, go to Image>Mode>Grayscale. You'll be asked if you want to throw away the other channels, click yes, and you're pretty much done.

You can make it look a little nicer by blurring it a couple pixels. Better yet, duplicate the background layer by grabbing the layer itself and dragging it down to the little page icon at the bottom of the layers pallette and then changing the blend mode to soft light or overlay.
The other methods mentioned are all good, especially the one involving painting in colour mode, but they're advanced.

Mig