retouching attempt

lynnma

phew.. this is hard...

I've been attempting to practice better retouching.. I found this model a challenge.. comments welcome.

before and after.

pathfinder

Seems a touch yellow to my eye, and reads significantly more + in the b channel than the a channel in LAB.. B is expected to be higher than A, but maybe not this much.

Yet the whites of her eyes are blue green, what kind of light was this shot under, Lynn??

I don's suppose this was shot as a RAW file, was it?

lynnma

pathfinder wrote: »

Seems a touch yellow to my eye, and reads significantly more + in the b channel than the a channel in LAB.. B is expected to be higher than A, but maybe not this much.

Yet the whites of her eyes are blue green, what kind of light was this shot under, Lynn??

I don's suppose this was shot as a RAW file, was it?

Hi Path, how are you? I did not take this shot (thank goodness) it was just a project to see if I could improve a really bad image. You are right about the yellow. I corrected the skin color using cmyk 30,24,8 and then converted it back to rgb - then she looked so pale and blah I added a warming filter, shouldn't have done that... made a yellow cast. Skin color is my biggest challenge... I never seem to get it right. I used a high pass filter to smooth skin and preserve texture.. still have a long long way to go with this. Thanks for your comment.. always helpful
lynn

Peano

lynnma wrote: »

I corrected the skin color using cmyk 30,24,8 and then converted it back to rgb -

Just as a side note, never convert RGB to CMYK and then back to RGB. Doing that destroys color data that you cannot recover.

If you want to refer to CMYK values while adjusting skin tones, set sample points and have them display CMYK values. That way the image remains in the RGB color space.

lynnma

Peano wrote: »

Just as a side note, never convert RGB to CMYK and then back to RGB. Doing that destroys color data that you cannot recover.

If you want to refer to CMYK values while adjusting skin tones, set sample points and have them display CMYK values. That way the image remains in the RGB color space.

thanks for that... I did'nt know that. Good info.
Lynn

marionet

I'm new here so I don't know whether editing is generally accepted or frowned on, so if you don't want this up, I'll take it down. I'm far from being really good at retouching but I used to do a lot of color correcting and found almost all casts can be corrected with Curves and Selective Color, and Hue and Saturation usually works to clean it up when necessary. I did this quick and dirty; I think it needs more contrast and the blue and cyan in her eyes can be neutralized by using the Wand to select them and then using Curves or Selective Color.

Have a good time in Aspen!

lynnma

marionet wrote: »

I'm new here so I don't know whether editing is generally accepted or frowned on, so if you don't want this up, I'll take it down. I'm far from being really good at retouching but I used to do a lot of color correcting and found almost all casts can be corrected with Curves and Selective Color, and Hue and Saturation usually works to clean it up when necessary. I did this quick and dirty; I think it needs more contrast and the blue and cyan in her eyes can be neutralized by using the Wand to select them and then using Curves or Selective Color.

Have a good time in Aspen!

Thanks Marionet some folks may take exception to editing but I don't I need all the help I can get. Although I am actually packing up our fifth wheel to take to the road tomorrow I'm still checking on dgrin... can you believe that? draining down the house and rollin. I'd like a bit more detailed info on your color correcting method if you can please? I mess about with it so much I probably get it near correct and then screw it up again... the color on the original was soooo bad I was trying to challenge myself.
Thanks for comments.

Lynn (draining toilets and putting beer in RV fridge )

marionet

"I mess about with it so much I probably get it near correct and then screw it up again..."- Lol, been there, done that. Wallowing in enthusiasm, I used to figure that the more time and effort I spent on a picture, the better it would be. Then one time I spent easily a half hour on what seemed like a tricky one, got it to where it looked pretty good to me, and then just for yuks and to pat myself on the back, I clicked "Auto" on a copy of the original to see how much better I did- and had to admit that what I'd done wasn't as good as Auto's version." (After that, I used to click Auto first and then work with the curves that that produced until I realized that seemed to be harder... but it's interesting to see what changes Auto makes, and I think I learned something from it. Hm, not sure exactly what I learned, but it just seems like I had to have learned something...)

Complex casts from different temperature light sources can be real horror shows but consistent light isn't usually too hard. I don't think levels is easier to use than curves, and curves is more versatile. A cast can hide other casts so I go from the most noticeable first and adjust The RGB curve as I go. Sometimes I move the high-end point, sometimes the middle of the curve but almost always try the high-end point first. Sometimes I have to ok the curve adjustment and then reopen curves for a final adjustment. Changing curves can cause or accentuate color shifts (like in darker areas) so selective color comes in handy to deal with that. Selective color can be sort of tricky; I've gotten a feel for it by fiddling around with it a lot; I'm better with it than I used to be but sometimes I still have to fiddle for a while. Increasing contrast also increases saturation so hue/saturation comes in handy. Using the wand and lasso let you do spot corrections.

Lol, "packing up our fifth wheel". Hey, ya never know what's going to be around the next corner... Don't forget the camera.