Advice on retouching.

[mieltjoes]

Hi guys,

New here, so I hope I'm doing this right. I need advice on how to deal with retouching around similar colored objects with different shades of background involved.

I want to remove the sauce on the plate to make the image look cleaner, but using quick retouch or repair makes it blurry or incorporates pieces of the product. With other methods I can't get the shades right, how would you deal with this?

 

[carlbush]

Hi, I tackled this in a few different ways ... there are other ways as well.
1. In the upper-left-box area: I drew a mask around the area I wanted to adjust; copied to a new layer; saved the mask; removed the mask; created a new layer below the layer to be fixed; filled that layer with a sample of the color of the plate; used the "dodge" and "burn" tools to match the color layer to the tones of the layer to be fixed; merged the two layers; used a large "spot healing brush" to fix the area; restored the mask; inverted mask; deleted area outside mask; touch-up as necessary to finish.
2. In the upper-right-box area: I drew a mask around the area needing correction; used a large soft "smudge" tool to pull the chicken grease out of the area; color matched the area using a sample from the plate. Finish.
3. In the lower-box area: drew a mask around the area to fix; sampled the plate color near that area; used a large soft brush to fill the mask; "burn" tool to shade as necessary. Done.
... as you might guess, fix #3 was much less work than fixes #1 or 2.

 

[mieltjoes]

Seems like I really need to upgrade my masking skills.
Thanks so much for showing different approaches!