Help a guy out, hmmm?

Andy · May 3, 2006

OK so one of our pros, his name is Clint aka "Cheerdad" he needs some help perfecting his in-post routine for skin tones and general color, tone and contrast adjustments. I told him that the crew here loves to work on images, and share their knowledge.

Let's see what you all can do with this image, aiming for good skin tone, nice contrast, and background that's not grey, but white. Extra points for using FEWER steps, and for this example, please, we'd like to see RGB workflow, not LAB.

here's a 4 minute edit:
1) bumped the blacks in the dress by about 50 (selective color)
2) selected the background, blew it out with levels adjustment
3) adjusted skin tone
4) slight curves adjustment, trying to improve the tonal range in her face.

I'd like to learn, too - so if you have better ways, please share them :deal

Awais Yaqub · May 3, 2006

1- Replace colors
2- History brush
3-contrast
4- Saturation (selective color)
5-curves

gluwater · May 4, 2006

Levels and brought the end points in slightly
slight S curve
Contrast +3
used Select>Color Range to select the red in her face and then used Color Balance to reduce the red and add a little yellow
again used Select>Color Range but selected the background and used curves to make it white.

edgework · May 4, 2006

Andy wrote:

OK so one of our pros, his name is Clint aka "Cheerdad" he needs some help perfecting his in-post routine for skin tones and general color, tone and contrast adjustments. I told him that the crew here loves to work on images, and share their knowledge.

Let's see what you all can do with this image, aiming for good skin tone, nice contrast, and background that's not grey, but white. Extra points for using FEWER steps, and for this example, please, we'd like to see RGB workflow, not LAB.

The colors aren't bad to start with, but the contrast is out to lunch and the details need to be crisper.

Copied each channel into its own layer in this order (blue first, then green, then red):
Blue-luminosity mode, 63% opacity
Green - soft light mode, 43% opacity
Red - overlay mode, 43% opacity

Copied original background layer and placed on top
Color mode, 100%

Group all four layers to a layer set and use mask to restrict to face and hair (large soft brush works fine. The point is to not ruin the bright yellows in the blouse).

Copied all to new layer
Linear Light mode, 50%
High-Pass filter, .5 radius

Copied all to new layer again and repeat previous settings.

Set first High-Pass layer to 24% opacity
Set second High-Pass layer to 30% opacity.

Help a guy out, hmmm?

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