Create Beautiful Skin Tones Using Gradient Map in Photoshop

today we're gonna be talking about how to create any skin tone like this in Photoshop it's gonna be a lot of fun whether you have a reference image are not creating a skin tone can be really easy but here's the thing since every image is different the method will be the same but there will be little variations here and there and that's why I have divided this tutorial into three examples and that pretty much covers it all I'm pretty much excited and I hope you are too so without any further ado let's get started so here we are first up and by the way all the images that I've shown in the tutorial is available for download links in the description below everything for free so this is the subject that we want to change the skin tone off and we would like her to have a skin tone like this okay now we can create our own skin tone but to have a reference you'll have a better understanding of what I'm actually doing so to do that all you have to do select any selection tool and select out a part of her face okay controller command C come back to this image controller command we you know what just happened this hee-haws kidding let me try to put this back in the right place my keyboard let's see whether that fits okay let's zoom in and let's control a command T and let's resize that and this is just for reference okay this will stay at the top all the time every adjustment layer that we add is going to be between this and this the first adjustment layer that we're going to add is called curves and this time we'll first adjust the lightness and then we'll adjust the color okay so add an adjustment layer called curves there we go let's make it a little smaller I don't know what was I doing the last time okay now take the middle point click here and take it downwards to a point where it matches this so I think this is okay this is pretty much okay and as you can see the shadows here is a bit lighter we'll take care of that later first just look at the skin the skin should match first okay so it's something like this all right now once you're satisfied with this close it next we can add something cold and this is crucial and this is the main heart of this tutorial something called gradient math okay now make sure you close it first okay change the blend mode of the gradient map from normal to you okay now click here this is one of the things that most of us miss click here currently it was selecting the mask click here so that fin example it doesn't sample the mark what does that mean I'll show you ok double click on the properties ok this these are the properties every icon that an adjustment layer has if you double click on it the properties will show up now single click on this don't double click on this single click on this and this will come up with some presets now zoom in right now if you can I'm guessing you can no you can't just close it in then zooming okay now zoom out so that both of the faces are visible and then single click on this and select any one with three colors equally okay this one you can select this one and then all you have to do you have to double click on this with the eyedropper tool sample the darkest area of this face okay shadows to be precise okay click OK then double click on the middle one sample the mid-tones of this face so this is the mid-tone I'll click here click OK double click on this one sample the brightest area of this face click OK now this is pretty much matching okay now before you do anything of course we can go ahead and adjust that tweak it a little bit but before you do anything we need to paint in the skin so that to see how it's exactly matching and to match it well match it better so pause for a second click OK close it pause for a second just paint over her skin and then do the required adjustments okay now let's make group of both of these control a command hold it and select both of these controller command G now this is a group I'll create a negative mask to create a negative mask press and hold alt or option + click on this mask button now take the brush make sure the foreground color is white increase the flow to hundred that's okay make the brush as soft as it can go and just paint over her skin as you can see now her skin is matching with her of course we need to do a little bit of adjustment but don't paint on our lips just her skin there we go to erase an area press X foreground color becomes black and then paint on that we didn't want on her lips we wanted here we want to paint here that's white and you pretty much have the idea now let's go back and try to tweak it okay great since the blend mode huge change is just the hue it doesn't touch the saturation and what is hue hue is the pure color if the color it chooses so we need to create an adjustment layer hue/saturation and just increase or decrease the saturation to see which one is matching now everything that we are doing is doing inside this group okay so once you are inside this group create an adjustment layer hue/saturation and let's try increasing or decreasing the saturation to see which one's matching don't touch the hue just the saturation okay so as you can see if I increase it it's now matching a little more close it have a look at the before and after so this is the before this is the average getting closer to this now to tweak it even more let's come back to the mask and let's paint in this area just a little bit okay now to tweak it even more what you can do go back to the gradient map and click a few more times at the places which you might think would make a perfect midtone a perfect shadow and a perfect highlight so double click on the gradient map okay single click on this and double click basically on the mid-tones does most of the job and click on different areas to see which one's matching oops we did some mistake here's why you need to select anywhere I click it's selecting white why I'll show you why cancel this cancel this because this is selected remember what I told you make sure this is selected okay now go to the properties now single click on this now double click on this and just take a sample now whenever you are taking a sample make sure all layers is checked okay if it's not checked it won't do your job okay now let's try different areas which area might match the most you don't know so it's going green if I choose this so maybe this area is the best click OK we have the highlights in place and then can tweak it as much as you want and click OK now as you can see the shadows here a little lighter that is kind of something in a global level global level so let's add a global curves just above the group so add a curves and make sure the curve is outside the group and then go to the properties of the curve and increase the shadows just like this one increase the shadows give it a little twist there we go ok now it has mashed as you can see let's look at the before look at the after we have tried to match with this one also decrease the opacity of the group to match it better there we go have a look before after now you can take your time to paint all over the body all over the skin I'm not going to waste your time so let's jump into our second example in this example as you can see she has a very light skin and if you want to give her a nice golden tan it has you gotta do we want this skin tone so do the same thing select the face ok controller command C controller command V now in this I'm going to talk about how would you modify and create your own skin tone if you want ok so place it right beside her there we go and do the same thing create a curves first to get curves now decrease it because that's a bit darker not too much bit darker bit and here's the keep you see the brightest area here it's very white but the brightest area here is not that bright so we need to take this down to like so watch now it kind of matches have a look take it more down take this down to now it kind of matches have a look before after it's matching then create the gradient one radial map and close it and select this and change the blend mode to Q now here's the thing sometimes the blend mode you will not work let me show you we double click on this click once and do the same thing make sure all layers is checked ok select any one with three colors select the darkest area or select black you can select black click OK the mid-tones you can select something like this with this click ok and for the brightest areas you can select the brightest area like this and click OK it's not matching it's not looking good so in that case what you can do you can change the blend mode to color now it's much more mattering now before you tweak it again as I told you make a group of both of them ok control the commandery remember what we have to do now create a negative mass special order option and click on this negative mask take the brush foreground color white and just paint over her skin now it's pretty close it didn't look so much close when we applied it all over the image now you can do a separate one for lips even you can create a gradient map for lips then you can match the lipstick also I'm just going to show you the skin okay I know this is looking strange you need to do a separate one for the lipstick and we basically have the idea now once you have this what you can do if you want to modify it if you want to create your own skin tone you can go to gradient map single click on this now you have the reference you can click on this double click and you can select any color of your choice to have the skin tone that you want for example you like this one you would click OK right isn't that nice so that's how you make your own skin tone now here's another thing close it close it you might not want this at this much intensity so what you can do select the group decrease the opacity have a work it's much more better than the previous one half a work so this is the before this is the after you can decrease the opacity as much as you want before after and paint in the rest of the areas a much more tanned skin tone okay now this brings us to a third example where even the color blend mode might not work you might have to do a little adjustments here in there and also apply some global adjustments to make it work step let's get started the third example is a relatively difficult image why difficult a blue look this image as you can look has a kind of faded effect and we want her to have a skin tone of her but in this image the shadows are dark but in this image the shadows are faded so how do we get around that they'll learn it together so first thing always select the face there we go look at controller command C controller come on we so there we have it keep it side let's make it a little bigger to have a much better sampling there we go and select this layer so the first thing that we need to do we need to match the shadows and highlights because this is faded we need to match the shadows and highlight whether you match the shadows and highlights of this one or this one that's totally upon you I'm going to match this shadows and highlights to this one okay so to create that to make that add a curves adjustment layer and this is global we are not going to add this to the group as you can see there is a sharp rise from here which means that after this point anything which is darker than this has been faded so we would take the slider from here there there we go have a look it has matched just a little here right you might want to take it a little more to the left and you might want to give it a little maybe something like that not too much just a little hair there something like this okay great have a look before after now it's pretty much matched now for the skin we need to darken that okay this is on the curves we are adding this to our group this curves you're going to match it for the skin the skin is obviously a little lighter so we're going to add a little there we go a little highlight here if we can notes getting bad can make it a little something like that yeah it's kind of matching but we want a little more highlight there we go it's pretty much matching okay have a look at the before and after so this is the before this is the after decrease the opacity okay that's too much decrease the opacity okay now the lightness is pretty much mattering now the gradient map Radian map okay close it and select this one change the blend mode to color okay then double click on this single click on this select any one with three double click on this select the darkest one you can even select black if you want to in most cases it can be blacks and the middle one select the mid-tone of your choice like this something like this click OK the lighter one select the brightest part of the skin in this case it is this okay now as you can see it's just not handsome Kate's just not matching click OK ok just click OK yeah even if it is color it's just not matching ass-licking a click alright so let's make a group of both of these first and then what you can do take the brush and create a negative mask and paint on the skin okay do that first don't paint on the eyes paint on the skin there we go just for example cleaned here just ignore the dogs barking in the background for now okay alright those are not my pet dog somebody else's all right before after it's not matching at all why we are losing the highlights of the environment so we need to take away the highlights from the effect so make sure to select the gradient map for right-click on it and go to blending options or which you can do the shortcut of going to blending options is double click on the right hand side of the layer and that opens up the blending options now take the slider of the underlying layer from right to left if you do that the set goes away from the highlights now this is quite harsh right alter option hold it click on it and make it kind of natural something like that click ok have a look at the before and after so this is the before this is the after now you might want to decrease the opacity there you go something like that now we might have to do the lips separately click it now you can always go back to the gradient map where it is color and choose the colors if you want the one that matches the most this one looks good click OK click OK close it there we go now you can also decrease the opacity if you want to another thing that I talked about previous in the previous examples in the very first example create a hue/saturation if you have two and increase or decrease the saturation accordingly there we go okay and that's how you mask and have a look at the before and after so this the before this is the after much more natural much more better have a look at the overall before and after so this is the before this is B half step by the way I just forgot to add it some of you guys are wondering how do I get rid of this portrait all you have to do you have to drag this and they'll eat it it also another way is just turning it off or just press Delete and that's it so that's how you create any skin tone in Photoshop just to quick recap number one adjust the lighting using what curves adjusting clip adjust the color using what gradient now when you use the gradient map make sure you try to blend modes what are those cube and color okay and when you sample select any gradients with three colors and sample the shadows the mid-tones and the highlights and you're done sometimes you might want to add a hue/saturation to take it more closer to the sample sometimes you also might have to add a blended or sometimes you also might have to decrease the opacity for it to match well I hope this video helped you and if it did please give us a like and also don't forget to the square and not to subscribe ring the bell so that you my friends don't miss anything I would like to thank all our supporters who are helping keep fix and perfect free for everybody forever if you want to support the channel check the link down there in the description also special thanks to save your managers especially for making this episode possible I'll see you guys in the next until then stay tuned and make sure that you keep kicking [Music] and [Music]

Channel: PiXimperfect

Views: 166,864

Keywords: skin tone photoshop, changing skin tone in photoshop, create skin tone photoshop, beautiful skin tone in photoshop, fix skin tone photoshop, skin tone tutorial, edit skin tone in photoshop, portrait retouching, skin retouching photoshop tutorial, changing skin color in photoshop, piximperfect, photoshop tutorial

Id: AxeO5ia-68s

Length: 18min 49sec (1129 seconds)

Published: Sun May 21 2017