skin enhancement

[Erik]

Just read about, and tried out this very simple and quick skin enhancement technique:

1/ Open you RGB portrait or whatever
2/ Go to channels palette and copy the green channel
3/ Paste it on a new layer
4/ Set the blending mode to Luminosity


This is very inviting for further explorings....[excited]

[vogonpoet]

gonna give us a clue to what kind of enhancement we might expect?

or even an example ?

[mr-meth]

one question .. ?how i can copy the green channel?

[{OZ}]

mr-meth -- click on the green channel and Select > All ( or ctrl+A )
then copy
then paste to a new layer.

Erik -- It seems this method lightens the image overall. It's more like applying a screen mode with 30-40% opacity. It sure is an interesting method though. very open to further experiments. gives very interesting reults in LAB or cmyk modes as well.. (altho those modes doesnt have a "green channel", it gives interesting results to copy/paste other channels)

[Erik]

Indeed Oz, that's approximately what it does. But for enhancing skin tones it is a quick method to obtain acceptable results. Fot other colours is isn't practical.

Mind if I write down the steps too? (your knowledge of PS is obviously quite good)

- go to the channels palette
- click on the green channel's text. The channel will be selected. Click on the eye icon of the green channel your image will turn grey, the greyscale values of what is green in your image
- Ctrl+A to select what you see
- Ctrl+C to copy it to the clipboard
- see that your image is back in colour by clicking the topmost RGB channel.
- Ctrl+D to deselect

- go to the layers palette and click on the icon at the bottom to make a new layer and see that is is selected
- Ctrl+V to paste the greyscale image from the clipboard to this new layer

- set the blending mode of this layer to Luminosity.

When I paint in the old Flemish technique, I use a green hue for my first tempera layer when I need skin tones. Green is also the best channel for skin tones. When we choose luminosity, we keep the lightness of our selected layer and we mix that with the hue and saturation of the layer below it. See? We keep the colour of our original image and we give it the brightness of the green channel, the best grey-scale counterpart of the ideal skin-tone.

The left image is the original one. Although I tried to correct the exposure for the contrast of the face with the light background, the face is still a bit too dark. The image on the right-hand side is corrected. Normally I would also select the skin-tone parts first, but this is only a quick illustration of the effect. Bear with me...

Look at the colours of her sweater to see the harm this trick does to the other colours and hues...

[Erik]

When you make a "normal test of Luminosity, you would never think this result could be obtained:

white and grey are unaffected, mediam grey and a gradient black-to-white give ugly results:

[sfm]

neat trick Erik - now put it in a bottle and sell it he he he

I can understand the green part, used to use a green makeup stick to hide blemishes when I was young - hey it makes sence now if we can just bottle it up and sell it he he he
sfm

[Erik]

In fact: even quicker is the Image>Apply Image command. You don't need to make a new layer at all.

The Image>Calculations command is also fascinating.

As is the Split command. You find this in the drop-down list you can access with the arrow in the Channels palette. (it gives you separate documents of your channels.

[ApWizard]

Hi mate!
I like this techniques for the skin tone ;) , but you lost several details in another part of your photo!

The green arrow are the right thing (i not highlight the skin becouse it's result is very good, nothing to say).

The red arrow are the lost details. Photo retouching is made to better the photos and mantein or highlights the detail.



don't take it as critics, but as an advice.;)

See ya

ApWizard

[ApWizard]

the image