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Help with skin tones


TonyCooper

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I'm an experienced user of Photoshop (using CC 2015 at present), but on photos that have never required any adjustment of skin tones.
The type of things that I usually photograph don't involve skin tones.

However, a new grandchild has changed this. Daughter-in-law is snapping photos of the newborn on her iPhone and sending them to
me to process and print. The image here was taken the day the boy was born. I have seen him, and he is not as orange as a pumpkin.
Nor is his mother's hand which is in the lower left of the image.

Some photos taken in weeks after June 28th also have skin tone problems in iPhone images. Some lean to the reds and some to the
yellows. The photos I've taken with my Nikon dslr do all right with the skin tones, but d-i-l wants to use some of her iPhone photos.

Would those of you who have experience in this point me to some tutorials on this? I have CC 2015 Photoshop and Lightroom, Nik, and
OnOne 7.0. (I very seldom use OnOne except for Perfect Resize)

This is not a request to improve this image. It's a request for pointers to some good tutorials so I can learn to do it.

2015-06-28.jpg
 

Tom Mann

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Three things suggest strongly that the image that you posted has already been edited in PS.

The first observation is that the white towel is very close to white, whereas the skin tones are still way too orange. This strongly suggests that someone attempted to do a color correction placing the eyedropper CC tool in either ACR or PS itself on the towel.

The second bit of evidence that this photo is not an original is the HistorySoftwareAgent field in the xmp data in this JPG says:
Adobe Photoshop CC 2015 (Windows)*
Adobe Photoshop CC 2015 (Windows)*
Adobe Photoshop CC 2015 (Windows)*
Adobe Photoshop CC 2015 (Windows)

The third bit of evidence is simply that this image doesn't look anything like I would see if I took a photo on my iPhone in tungsten light, the most likely explanation for the orange cast.

The reason I immediately focused on this is because with every data transformation that an image is subjected to, information is lost, and the probability of a fully successful "fix" goes down.

As an extreme, but plausible example, suppose, for the sake of argument that someone, in the interest of increasing contrast, applied a curve to the image, and this caused all blues in the darker areas to go to zero. Then there is absolutely no way one will EVER be able to recover the true color in such areas because no information exists any more that would allow one (or one's software) to make such a separation. Obviously, if the blues in this hypothetical example didn't get mapped to exactly zero, but to values near zero, then one might be able, in principle, to reverse the process and separate them. The only problem is that this would require a huge amount of expansion of the blues in the darker areas, and the smallest amount of noise or error would get magnified into incorrect values.

For this reason, if I am correct, and this image was indeed edited, can you please also post as un-edited a version as you have.

I will probably still see what can be done with the version you already posted, but no guarantees of how well this will come out.

Thanks,

Tom M
 
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I fully agree with Tom Mann's comment.
But in case the OP doesn't have the unedited version of the image, this might help.

Got to filter- Corrections- Hue Saturation and put in the values of the screenshots below...
1.jpg 2.jpg

...then you'll get this result. Better, but not perfect.
2015-06-28 chrisdesign.jpg
 
Last edited:

Tom Mann

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If, for some reason, you can't find the original of the image that you posted, here's what I was able to do based on the version posted:

57621d1438662603-help-skin-tones-2015-06-28-jpg-acr0-ps03a_sRGB_698px_hi-01a_more_tweaks.jpg

I used one of my favorite plugins for color correction, Color Mechanic:
http://www.dl-c.com/site/products/buy-cm.php

Here is a screen grab that shows detail from the lower left hand corner of the UI that shows the single correction that I applied. The meaning of the arrow should be pretty obvious.

UI_detail_from_Color_mechanic.jpg

And finally, here is a screen grab of the entire UI of Color Mechanic that shows what was achieved in this single step.

Entire_UI_from_Color_Mechanic-sRGB.jpg


With a bit more tweaking using common native PS tools/adjustments like levels and vib/sat, I was able to get the result you see above.


HTH,

Tom M
 

Tom Mann

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PS - I just realized that I forgot that I also applied Topaz Detail to the baby's face to smooth it out a bit without removing fine detail.

T
 

IamSam

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Having helped to deliver hundreds of babies (C-Section) I can tell you that they will have have prominently red and yellow skin tones.

I used a Curves Adjustment layer set to red and pulled the reds down .
Screen Shot 2015-08-04 at 7.48.13 AM.png

And then a Hue & Sat adjustment layer to tone down the saturation.
Screen Shot 2015-08-04 at 7.48.22 AM.png

BabyColorChange_01.jpg
 
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Having helped to deliver hundreds of babies (C-Section) I can tell you that they will have have prominently red and yellow skin tones.

I used a Curves Adjustment layer set to red and pulled the reds down .


Wow, I didn't know of your "other" talents yet Sam?:surprised:...cool...
but back to your way of skin tones correction: If you pull down the curves in one channel, it always affects the grey balance of the image, and this is undesirable.
 

IamSam

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Wow, I didn't know of your "other" talents yet Sam?:surprised:...cool...
Yes, I have assisted 4 OB/GYN Physicians for over 30 + years delivering babies via C-Section, so I have seen a few newborns.

chrisdesign said:
but back to your way of skin tones correction: If you pull down the curves in one channel, it always affects the grey balance of the image, and this is undesirable.
OK, that makes sense. The greys are leaning towards blue.

I was concerned about the other colors in the image like the blanket, Tom's version created a pink stripe instead of red. Masking may be needed there. The baby is way off color in his version. Since you 'liked' his post, you think his colors are more accurate?
 
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Speaking in professional terms, yes his colors are more acurate.
His skin color has the same hue from the highlights to the shadows.
The baby's face is the important part of this image and not the red stripes.
Of course he could have masked them.
 

Tom Mann

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Thanks for the vote of confidence, Chris, but I'll defer to Sam's experience in this field. As a point of reference / humor, other than on TV, I have seen exactly one newborn baby in my entire life, so I really was just guessing at what their skin tones would be, and probably made his skin more uniform than it is in reality - probably too much like adult skin.

That being said, I think Sam's version looks like it was taken under fluorescent light -- almost a greenish-yellow bias throughout the image.

Also, you are absolutely right about the reds in my towel having gone pink. I guess I really should have masked the other areas of the picture and dealt with them separately. Of course, I've completely ignored the huge OOF adult hand in the lower RH corner -- in mine it looks like it came straight out of a zombie movie, LOL.

All the best, guys --

Tom M
 

IamSam

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That being said, I think Sam's version looks like it was taken under fluorescent light -- almost a greenish-yellow bias throughout the image.
I agree..........but almost all lighting in Hospitals (including patient rooms) is fluorescent. But I would like it to look more natural, I'll work on it.
 

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