skin color transitions ? natural flow

[JoseMiguel]

Hello fellow Retouchers

I am here retouching an image of a model and the skin color is great but it has a few funky shades that I can't seem to get rid of. Any suggestions as to how I can ever things out and or see the areas better!

https://www.dropbox.com/s/ug3at39vll8nk7b/q1.jpg?dl=0

[klev]

Re: skin color tranisitions ? natural flow

These things happen, and they're annoying. A common way to remedy it is by using a masked adjustment layer, but you can get away with cloning in color mode at a low opacity. If you use a blank layer, set the layer blending to color mode instead. Make sure you don't go over a highlight with a sample from a deeper area. It will look unnatural because highlights tend to be much less saturated in most things. As a general rule you only see a heavy tint in metallic objects.

[JoseMiguel]

Re: skin color tranisitions ? natural flow

http://iconosquare.com/viewer.php#/detail/902545209905414595_144052335

What I ended up doing was sampling the good skin color and brushing over the affected areas with the layer on color mode with a opacity of about 21%

also did some minor local selections and changed the colors with curves.

even did a bit of color balance and masking.

I am generally happy with the results - it looks cleaner - I wasn't going for super polished.

However, I do want to learn super polished for other works.

[klev]

Re: skin color transitions ? natural flow

That link isn't working for me. Polished can mean a lot of things, but I'll give it a try. It's very common to mask skin to get that perfect skin color balance. Even then you have to be careful in your strategy to ensure that it still has the appropriate color variation. I see a long list of things that could be improved, but the time might be better spent on a cleaner shot. There isn't a great way to improve the wardrobe details, because there are too many clues that the garment is stretched.

[JoseMiguel]

Re: skin color transitions ? natural flow

The link to my final hi res is here

https://www.dropbox.com/s/fe2f03l0nrms3r9/_MG_0193.jpg?dl=0

I did want to lose the color cast - I think it adds an aesthetic am working on balancing out. My work can be seen on

http://www.instagram.com/imagefolio or

http://imagefolioarchive.tumblr.com/

working on my official site still but those do for now.

[klev]

Re: skin color transitions ? natural flow

I like those a lot better, but your sense for details could use some work. There are parts where bright patches exit a photo drawing you away from the subject or overly bright garment elements that aren't the main features of the look and a couple where I would have liked to see more detail in a scarf. I like them a lot better in spite of stuff like that. It's not as pronounced, but I think I would suggest studying facial anatomy. It's probably the most common thing I see on here, because it's a very difficult thing to analyze. I think if you nailed a couple of those things, it would be a huge improvement to your work (which I already like).

[JoseMiguel]

Re: skin color transitions ? natural flow

There I fixed the link

[JoseMiguel]

Re: skin color transitions ? natural flow

Ah thanks for the over all critique! So you are saying I should consider actually learning how to draw and study face from an anatomical level. I never thought of that but that sounds like a swell idea!

Thanks again.

[skoobey]

Re: skin color transitions ? natural flow

Yep, pick a color and brush at low opacity using new layer in color blending mode is the way to go.

[klev]

Re: skin color transitions ? natural flow

Ah thanks for the over all critique! So you are saying I should consider actually learning how to draw and study face from an anatomical level. I never thought of that but that sounds like a swell idea!

Thanks again.

No problem. You don't have to necessarily be capable of drawing one from scratch. I tell people this so that they can spot when something is missing, under-represented, or just looks strange for whatever reason. There are points where I see weirdness due to a lack of shape. I see it frequently (and in practically every other post on here, but to be fair I've made the same mistakes), and most of the time it appears to be an unintentional side effect. I think conquering some of those details would result in a massive improvement in your work moving forward.

[JoseMiguel]

Re: skin color transitions ? natural flow

No problem. You don't have to necessarily be capable of drawing one from scratch. I tell people this so that they can spot when something is missing, under-represented, or just looks strange for whatever reason. There are points where I see weirdness due to a lack of shape. I see it frequently (and in practically every other post on here, but to be fair I've made the same mistakes), and most of the time it appears to be an unintentional side effect. I think conquering some of those details would result in a massive improvement in your work moving forward.

Your feedback really inspired me to put more effort into my retouching and even the shooting process in the first place. I am definitely controlling my light better, while the shaping things in post is an ongoing process. I got some new works up that show the progress.

http://iconosquare.com/viewer.php#/user/144052335/

Also so this wont be solely a critique post, I have a question possibly sharing raw shots for those who want to play with some select images of various shoots I have done in the past... would that be a good idea? if so, how do I go about doing it?

[Profesh]

Re: skin color transitions ? natural flow

Also so this wont be solely a critique post, I have a question possibly sharing raw shots for those who want to play with some select images of various shoots I have done in the past... would that be a good idea? if so, how do I go about doing it?

Unsure of the most reliable hosting solution for files of that size, but I'm game if you are. Here's a sample of my work, taken from this thread: http://oi60.tinypic.com/2hd0geg.jpg