2 Powerful Ways to Match Skin Tones in Photoshop

today we can learn how to match skin tones of different areas of the body in Photoshop now I have two techniques for you to do that and three examples so that we build up a strong grasp over the concept so without any further ado let's get started it's so good to be back this video is divided into sections if you wanna go ahead and skip to any section you can use these time stamps so here we aren't footed up in this photo was submitted by Heather Jaeger she is an amazing photographer I'm totally in love with her work you can always go ahead and check out her work right over there now as you can see in this image the skin tone of the face is not matching with the skin tone of her shoulders Heather told me that she's into sports so it's very obvious so what are the things that we should consider when it comes to matching the skin tones now here comes the concept which is very important to understand when it comes to matching skin tones two things need to be kept in mind lightness and color in other words brightness and the skin tone okay now what do I mean by that let's focus on the first part brightness or lightness or luminosity you need to determine whether you need to brighten or darken that particular area to match with the skin tone of other area without thinking about the color if that area is stand you need to brighten it and then take care of the color that's a completely different department color is different okay if it's bright if there's a discoloration you have to darken it and then take care of the color so lightness is taking care of how bright or dark that is second is color as the name suggests if it has gone dark at the same time it has got a little bit of magenta tint you need to apply the opposite color which is green to neutralize that to match with the other areas of the skin so on and so forth we gotta discuss that in detail later so two things remember lightness and color now let's jump back to photoshop now before we do anything before we apply the first method have a look we need to clean this up okay so clean up is essential for both the techniques or any of the techniques that you use apart from these two alright so how do we clean that up very easy to do as you can see the face is totally cleaned up if it was not we would have thought otherwise but in this case the face is totally clean and we need to clean this as well all right to some degree if you want to completely if you want to it's totally upon you so let's go ahead and create a new layer by clicking on the new layer button and let's name this blemishes if you want to our sports whichever word is your favorite now let's zoom in a little more and use the regular Healing Brush tool let's go ahead right click on here and choose the Healing Brush tool the regular one not the Spot Healing Brush tool okay let's make the brush a little bigger to make the brush bigger in Windows you can hold the Alt key and the right mouse button hold the right mouse button drag it to the right to make it bigger drag it to the left to make it smaller if you're using a Mac that would be option and controlled hold the option and ctrl and the right mouse button drag it to the right and left now sometimes it's gonna happen is and this is an error reported time and again that when you make the brush bigger or smaller this red preview appears in between now sometimes that preview just doesn't appear no matter what you do that's a bug in Photoshop if you're using the very latest person version of Photoshop you might see the bug so all you have to do just restart Photoshop and it will be fine probably by the time you are watching this might have been fixed but if it's not just restart Photoshop all right so all you have to do is zoom in and make sure you have sample current and below or all layers and just take a sample and simply paint take a sample by holding the Alt key or the option key and as soon as you hold the Alt key the cursor changes to a target icon just click on a similarly textured area just once and just fill up that and let's go ahead and clean up all of this you so we're zoomed in you can hold the spacebar and have a look at the cursor the cursor changes to a hand and you can use the hand to drag and move around okay so that's a tip all right with it you now as you can see the hairs are getting a little messy so you'll have to remove the hair right over there because there's a couple of marks and the hairs are all around if you try to do it it's gonna be messy so it's better that we remove the hair so just simply paint over that and we're gonna go ahead and remove the extra hairs that we can see if we didn't remove the hair it's much it's still smudging but you need to be really careful about things like this as you can see they're still red over here and it's not going with a regular healing brush then let's switch to the clone stamp tool when nothing works the clone stamp always does because it just simply kompy's and pastes it doesn't try to match anything the match the texture the color or whatever it just simply copies and pastes it's like a copy and paste in a brush alright that looks fine to me here over there alright it's too much let's try some other area like that okay that's better that's even better alright let's zoom out and have a look at this it's much better than before have a look at the before and after so this the before this is the after it's pretty much cleaned up this area I think needs a pretty much a little bit more cleaning let's have a look before after this is pretty good let's clone stamp this area into this area add some texture over there it was missing a little texture from this particular area right over there like that and it's pretty good I think it is let's add some texture okay so if you want to go ahead and add texture to a dark area here's what you can do change the blend mode of the brush of the clone stamp tool brush from normal to darken or multiply right so let's try darken and let's try to copy this text show over there so let's see whether that yes that copies the texture without brightening it okay let's try multiply sometimes it works sometimes it doesn't we got a try alright so multiply let's try to sample this no it's it's totally not working darken is the one which you need to use all right so much of a texture let's go back let's zoom out a little bit it's pretty fine but this hair I don't know that's disturbing me we got to get rid of that see I changed the blend mode to lighten because I want to take away the hair and the hair was darker than this game so if you change the blend mode to light and it will just paint on the hip now it's much more better alright so that was worth doing it have a look so have a look at the before after it was worth doing you can take more time and clean this up even better so there you go it's totally cleaned up have a look before after remember if the skin is smooth you don't have to do that ok now we can go ahead and match the skin and now exactly starts Method number one so the first technique to match skin tones is using curves now curves is something which you need to master in it's a really useful - when it comes to Photoshop and I personally cannot imagine my Photoshop life without curves alright so click on the adjustment layer icon and simply choose curves now inside of curves you can take it all the way up just to identify which areas are you painting take it all the way up just like that and all you have to do invert the mask click on the mask make sure the mask is selected press ctrl or command I ok this creates a negative mask this paints the mask completely in black now what is the concept of mask black other areas which do not show up and white other areas which show up so black hides white shows right now as you can see the mask is completely black so the layer or the adjustment layer is not visible in any area of the image okay so if we take the brush and make sure the foreground color is white press X to toggle between background and the foreground press D to reset the swatches if we paint over there nothing happens because black is the color and it's already black let's press X and if you paint see the effect starts to appear so make sure that you paint only on that effected area you don't have to be super accurate about this but if you want to be accurate please go ahead always welcome okay let's fill this area completely now let's subtract the other areas by pressing X and painting painting black on those areas extra ones and I'll paint white again in this particular area okay I think that's good all right now let's paint a little extra area over there like that and paint out this area that's fine let's revert it back to normal by clicking on this button right over there okay now I will tell you something which I personally do and it makes the process of matching skin tones much easier it's completely optional if you want to do it do it if you don't don't so we want to match the skin tone of this to the face right so let's cut out the face and put it beside it all right let's go ahead and select the background layer and simply I'll go ahead and select the lasso tool and make a selection rough selection of the face or the skin tone that you want to match it to and I'll press ctrl or command J then we'll place it on top of everything why because we don't want the curves to affect this thing okay let's place it on top of everything with the help of the move tool I'll just go ahead and keep it just beside this one so that we can zoom in and match it properly so completely optional I know this looks weird but this is something which you can do all right now let's get back to the curves click on the properties click on this icon it brings up the properties if you cannot see it then let's brighten it let's look at the first element so what's the first element the lightness okay the brightness so let's brighten it a little bit use this tool use this hand over there as you can see in this skin this area the highlight area is very bright and the shadow area is a little brighter not as bright as the highlight so target any one of those we're gonna target the shadows so the shadows of this area we're gonna try to match it with that area so let's click on the shadows and click and drag you don't have to do anything you don't have to click and then drag it from here just simply click and drag right from the image so click and drag it up just like that until it matches to the brightness of that one don't think about color right now just think about brightness let me help you if you don't want to be distracted by the color here's what you can do you can create a hue/saturation adjustment layer on top of everything okay and take the saturation all the way to zero then get back to curves and then brighten it okay using this tool you're gonna brighten it like that much easier to match the lightness right we will also match the contrast okay that's much better let's zoom out and have a look yep that's matching let's match let's try to darken up the shadows a little bit more that's fine it's will brighten up the highlights let's darken it up and darken up the shadows from here you can work it that way I think that's great I think that's great have a look before after it's pretty much matching you can make the shadows even more darker if you want to can increase the contrast but I'm gonna go with this this is fine for me okay before after it's looking pretty good let's go ahead and delete the hue/saturation adjustment sled we don't need it anymore now as you can see the brightness is now matching let's do the colors so how do we do the colors now this as you can see the shadows have a little bit of magenta to it so let's add magenta to the shadows so we'll go to green why green because green is the opposite of magenta always remember RGB opposite of cm5 so green is the opposite of magenta so green let's click on the same hand too and we want to add magenta to it so we will drag it down bring down the greens okay so click and drag it down until it matches like that it's pretty much matching not great but it's pretty good okay now let's try moving the other sliders let's try increasing the Blues a little bit it's helping yes it is helping let's try with reds let's try increasing the reds and then we'll try and decreasing it decreasing it a little bit helps I think it does okay have a look before after it's so much more matching now let's go ahead and decrease the overall colors it's too much saturated create another hue/saturation adjustment layer and what you can do you can create a clipping mask for this hue/saturation adjustment layer to effect just this particular area you don't have to copy the mask as you can see if I move it it affects the complete image have a look it affects the complete image you don't want that to happen we just wanted to affect this particular area so simply go ahead and click on the clipping mask button or hold the alt or option and click on the line between these two you can do any of those so lets clipping mask and let's revert back the effects and let's decrease the saturation because I think it's too much saturated and kaboom it just matched if you want to play with a Huey can also do that if you want to square it and increase it probably plus 2 or plus 3 let's go for three and we are done let's turn this off you don't need this anymore let's delete that and have a look at the complete before and after so this is the before this is the after totally matching and if you think at this point it's kind of too much you can always go ahead and adjust it let's increase the saturation I guess just a little bit and I'll go to the curves and decrease the brightness because I think the brightness is too much so just go ahead and decrease it not so much brightness over there okay the shoulders have to be a little darker and there you go it completely matched have a look at it before and after before after and here is the final result it's time to move to example number two and this photo was submitted by pro photographer deepak Mahajan really really beautiful work I'm a complete fan of his photos you can always go ahead and check more of his work right over there now as you can see in this image her skin tone on the face is different from that of the body it's a little bit darker now it's completely your call to match the skin tone of the face to the body or the body to the face I will personally go ahead and make the face a little brighter and match it the body that might be completely different for a different image so it's totally your call so the second method to match the skin tones in Photoshop is using just the hue/saturation adjustment layer so here's how we go about it let's go ahead and create a hue/saturation adjustment layer by clicking on the adjustment layer icon and choose hue/saturation okay now we need to target the face the skin tones on the face so first of all let's just take the hue all the way to the right let's increase the saturation just for identification purposes I know she looks like an avatar but that was not the goal identification is the goal select the mask simply do the same thing as we did with the curves press ctrl or command I take the brush we want to affect just this particular area we'll make the brush a little bigger a little softer hold the alt the right mouse button and drag it up to make it soft and drag it down to make it hard if you're using a Mac that would be option and control and then track for the right mouse button okay just paint with white on the tandoor the affected areas and then remove the extras by painting black again you don't have to be super accurate because we will be targeting the skin tones anyway so make sure you remove that off jewelry or any other stuff that you might come across as you can see the jewelry is of a similar color tone as the skin so you don't want to affect those because if it's a jewelry product shoot you don't want to change the colors of it okay so let's paint black in this area okay I think that's pretty good let's paint in white a little bit over there and that's pretty much fine let's paint in extra okay let's click on this button to return everything to zebra we have created the mask if you want to see the mask hold the alt or option click on the mask as you can see the mask sketch is right over there let's clean up those extra areas these are some extra areas you need to clean up like that and it's okay let's just clean that up hold the alt or option click on the mask again to bring it back now click on this icon to bring up the properties and what are we gonna do simply click on this button right over there and we will target the skin tones so click once on the skin so it targets a particular area okay so here's what we do make it narrower make this narrow so the top bar is the complete color spectrum of the image and the bottom bar is the result so right now we are targeting the Reds the reds of the complete color spectrum if we change the hue have a look nothing happens to the top bar have a look we are changing it the top bar is changing nothing but the bottom bar this particular area is changing colors because we are targeting that area that color spectrum of that image and that will affect the image but we want to target the skintone so take the hue all the way to the right and increase the saturation for identification purposes and make it narrower and move it around to select all of the skin so as you can see not all of the skin is selected most of it is selected so let's extend it a little bit like that extend it from the left a little bit okay we don't want to select the lips so we'll just extend it like that and we can take the inside slider to the right to make the transition smooth I still make sure all of it is selected okay that's pretty good now let's bring everything back to zero first of all let's make it brighter number one element lightness zoom out a little bit don't think about the color right now just simply increase the lightness as you can see at this point I'm pretty much satisfied with this but the saturation is a little less so we'll increase the saturation and let me give you a tip what about the value of lightness is for example forty-four do not go or avoid going too far beyond forty-four a little bit is fine but try avoiding too much okay so up to 44 it's completely fine beyond forty four you need to be careful okay the colors can clip and saturate so be careful let's increase it just a bit like that and that is fine okay that is fine and it's done have a look have a look at the before after I think as you can see it's very saturated it looks saturated let's decrease the saturation now it's fine have a look at this before after before after completely matching if you want to go ahead and play with the hue you can do that as well you can make it more magenta ish just a little bit I'll go to the left minus three that's fine and it's solved time to switch to the example number three and this is a really extreme example where everything is out of place as you can see the sunrays is falling on her it's slipping pretty good but on the neck is looking yellowish we're gonna try to remove the sunrays from the skin and also take care of the tan right over her stomach and all of that so we're gonna use the hue/saturation method you can also use curves whichever is your favorite so let's go ahead and click on the assessment layer icon and choose hue/saturation okay so let's first of all to target this particular area you see we can stack in multiple hue saturation adjustment layer with different adjustments and that is essential for an image like this okay first let's take care of the tan we'll click on this button and simply click on anywhere on the tan take it all the way right take it increase the saturation a little bit and make it narrower and find out exactly where the tan is so right over adjust there let's make it a little okay that's pretty good on this side okay let's take it a little in we don't want so much of a selection just a little bit more okay now let's try to increase the brightness or the lightness whatever you call it let's increase it a little bit and increase the saturation it's pretty natural have a look before after before after but it's also affecting the other areas we don't want that to happen with a mask selected press ctrl or command I take the brush and simply just paint on the affected areas with white we need to increase the saturation a little bit more and the hue a little bit to the left that's fine before after before after so the tan is taken care of now let's take care of the yellow areas so create a hue/saturation adjustment layer again and let's target the yellow areas click on this button and any of the yellow areas now let's make it more narrower like that take the hue all the way to the right increase the saturation and let's see which area is it affecting okay let's try to move it so you don't target this yellow area we'll just extend it like that yes this is kind of perfect yes from the right inside that's fine now let's bring everything back to the zero now let's try to change the hue let's make it a little okay that's fine let's decrease the saturation it's very saturated it's try decreasing the lightness okay have a look at the before and after before after it's looking pretty good but we need to darken it even more I guess so yes and how that's kind of matching now as you can see there's a couple of spots over there it's not looking great let's zoom in it's a low quality image so let's decrease the lightness even more and if you do decrease the lightness you might want to increase the saturation that's pretty good and let's zoom out a bit we need to improve the mask it's not selecting everything in order for it to just simply be a better one okay we don't want to affect any other areas but we want to improve the mask because these areas have white spots over there so it's affecting other areas we will have to use a mask an actual mask not the targeted area an actual mask to paint on these things press ctrl or command I and simply use the brush and just paint on those area that's a better thing to do paint out this one you can be super careful I'm gonna do it very quickly for you as you can see this area is getting very dark so we're gonna treat that that separately okay and have a look at this total complete before after before after now we can take care of these little white spots by using the the regular Healing Brush tool or the clone stamp tool whichever is your favorite now it will not happen if you have a very high quality image but sometimes it can sometimes the color difference can make it happen all right let's create one more hue/saturation adjustment layer and let's target this specific area by using this too and clicking on this particular area creasing the saturation increasing the hue and then the saturation making it narrower okay let's bring everything back to zero zero and then let's increase the lightness now that's matching that's matching don't go too much let's decrease the saturation and that's taken care of press ctrl or command I and then simply go ahead take the brush and then simply paint on that particular area and there you go this is the final result so that's how you ask skin tones in Photoshop now those are not just the only techniques to do it there are dozen other ways however if you have the concept clear you can use any method that you like not the only ones that I mentioned so what is the concept number one thing that we need to take care of is lightness and number two thing is color when it comes to matching skin tones you can also use color balance whatever you like but make sure that you match the light and then the color just a quick little recap first of all what was the first method that was curves and the second method that was hue/saturation now before you apply any technique make sure that you clean up if it is required I'm gonna repeat that again only and only if it is required clean that up as we did in the first example then go ahead and apply the methods so in the first method we applied some curves we increased in the RGB channel the brightness okay we took care of the light and then using the red green and the blue Channel we took care of the color then we saw the saturation was too much so we added one more hue/saturation adjustment layer with the curves and then decreased the saturation just a little bit and clip that to the curves adjustment layer to just limit it to that particular area as we did in the first example in the second example we used the hue/saturation adjustment layer it's just one you don't have to add anything else if you want again but you don't have to add anything else just the hue/saturation mask that particular area target that color and then take care of hue saturation and lightness pretty easy right now if you have a complex image where everything is going haver this area stand serious brighten this area is dark this area is magenta ish then you can add a couple of hue saturation let's stack them up all each other and then just target specific areas you can also do this with curves and that's pretty much it hope this video helped and if it did make sure to give us a like and also don't forget to subscribe and not just subscribe ring the bell so that you might friend do miss a thing thank you so much for watching I'll see you guys on my next one till then stay tuned and make sure that you keep creating [Music] you [Music]

Channel: PiXimperfect

Views: 299,244

Keywords: match skin tones, tanning, discoloration, color cast, uniform skin tone, curves, hue and saturation, adjustment layer, skin tone photoshop, photoshop skin retouching, even skin tone in photoshop, adobe photoshop cc 2017, how to edit skin in photoshop, fix skin tone photoshop, retouching, photoshop curves, skin retouching

Id: pvMzWuts9RI

Length: 29min 3sec (1743 seconds)

Published: Sat Dec 30 2017