Skin Color Balance on Composite Image

[jgphotgraphy]

Hey guys,

Looking for a little bit of help. First, a slightly longwinded explanation. Shooting the creative family Christmas card this year in a Mini-Cooper (original 60's one). Basically set my lighting up and then shot individual members in the car to post them together. The only snafu - my 20 month old son wasn't exactly cooperating, so the 'good' photograph I have of him is in the drivers seat, and I wanted to move him in between us.

There were a few difficulties here. First, the light changed between originally shooting my wife (windshield was clear), as skies were blue, and when I took the photo of myself nearly an hour later (cloudy skies cast a glare on the windshield. I had a black scrim set up to the side which helped, but wasn't able to knock it out all together. So i faded the clear windshield from my wife's side over to my side with the glare, but I feel that looks fairly natural (or at least good enough for the christmas card).

The trick comes with my son - I cut him out from where he was at the drivers seat (had to do some shoddy work on his shirt where the steering wheel blocked him), and put him in between us. However, it looks like his coloring is off from what we are - and I can't quite seem to get it right. Color balance is definitely not my strong suit in PS.

So that being said - can anybody offer suggestions, or if you'd like to take a crack at it, please do! It doesn't need to be perfect, it's only printing 4x4". FYI, the linked file is about 110 Mb.

[jgphotgraphy]

Here is the link to the .psd - once again, it's about 110 Mb. I also have the individual person files if you wanted to play around at that level in case my cutout wasn't done correctly. Just let me know.

Thanks!!

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/39926958/xmas.psd

[Stric9]

There is hope for you compilation. We could give better advice if we could see the original photos. I think the windshield issue could be worked out if you worked on it first without having to do complex selections first, using levels.

The skin corrections will have to be done individually and you can find info here. Correcting Skin Color: CMYK Tone Values & Nationality (Ethnic) Variations | Measuring and Correct Skin Color





Hope this helps.

[Stric9]

Whoops my post was late after the psd......needed to refresh again.

Will take a look at the psd.

[Paul]

I didn't download the file to big for my limited usage here in Oz
I just made a selection of the window screen and altered lighting and added a painted white layer.

[Ivan Skoro]

Again, they still look too bright.
Try lowering the brightness and adjusting the contrast. That should do the trick.

[jgphotgraphy]

Stric9 - that comp looks really good. Any chance you could post the psd for me so I can see what you did in a little more detail. I read through the CMYK skin color tutorial, and that definitely makes more sense as well. Thanks for everyone's help on this.

[Stric9]

Yep. Enable private messages and I'll get your email address and send it to you.

[jgphotgraphy]

Talk about a newb problem... I can't figure out how to get my private messages enabled.... I don't see the option in my user settings control panel. Can you point me to it? Thanks!