Reading mode: Light Dark

Rasing Levels on skin tone only

Go to last post
CS5 only, also took less than a minute. Took the image into Lab mode (for making a better separation between color and lightness), put up a curves adjustment layer, and then dailed in the limits to only let it affect the skintones. Advantage of this method is that you can build it into an action and apply that to all of your pictures at once. Also the edit works perfectly fine on the semi-visible skin (through the wet shirt), because in Lab it doesn't matter how light or dark a tone is. In RGB you would have a hell of a lot more problems to select all those different shades of skintone.
Also notice how the contrast in the shirt, the sea and the sky remain unchanged.



 
See also the current thread DXO versus Lightroom deals with capture one selective color adjustment as well. Good that you posed this question some good forgotten techniques are coming thru.
 
Makes sense that it would be possible in an action. I have no clue how to do it but think how handy an action this would be? We could kill on the color depth but have a more natural skin tone.

I need your help Joey.

I found a workaround and it's in C1 and not surprising in levels. The only problem there is when you pull up midtones it looses the punch and you end up painting back anyway. You can either paint skin or paint "other". If we could actionize it, then we could paint in batch.
 
The solutions in Capture One and in Photoshop are probably more alike then you think. The only thing C1 lacks is a way to target a contrast edit in very SPECIFIC color ranges. And that's exactly what I did in PS. If I wanted, I could make them hulk-green in the same matter.

The big pro with capture one is that it works directly onto the raw file. If you wanted to use a PS-action, you would first have to make the raws into images, and then run the actions on those.

I really don't think your problem is in the saturation, it is in the contrast. The skin has very dark shades. How do the pictures look if you lower the contrast, or use some 'fill light'? (don't know if C1 has such a slider)
 
could you post a screenshot from your C1 settings for the picture I edited? And do you work with raw files or image files? If it is image files, what format are they? And what settings do you use on your camera, in terms of contrast and color setting?
 
joey_B said:
I really don't think your problem is in the saturation, it is in the contrast. The skin has very dark shades. How do the pictures look if you lower the contrast, or use some 'fill light'? (don't know if C1 has such a slider)
Click to expand...
You're right it's not saturation and is contrast shooting in flat light. Lowering contrast makes the image look flat. I need to target a color range, you're right about that one too.

You understand the problem well and what I'm trying to achieve.

I like the looks of this, but I dealt with the skin in c1 and delta with the color in CS.

C1 needs such a tool or build it into a style.



 
I wanted to be at 2.8 to blow out DOF and gain all that ambient. I shot in A mode and let the ISO float. That fast shutter speed came in handy.



 


My Studio Lighting action that I previous posted uses Select Color to capture "highlights" which you then manipulate and then "shadows" to edit those.

Of course, you can always change the layer mode to just effect luminosity, color, or both. You can also change it to Screen, multiply, etc. for other effects.

Since your request was only to effect the skin that is what I did. I could have selected any part of the image.
 
TomC601 said:
At least with the two images you presented, this is really easy with no painting or selections necessary. I saturated the skin and desaturated everything else with the HSL tool. Took seconds. I could have left all the other colors alone and just saturated the reds on the skin for the effect I think you're looking for.









--
Regards,

Tom
Click to expand...
I need to learn that HSL tool. Even still, it's not the LOE of an action. If I have 2000 of these...
 
This is what it looks like in C1 and Cs right out of the camera. All the images look exactly the same. I can fix these, NP, but was just hoping to learn something new today.



 
I shoot Nikon, I live with the flash turned to on, but this session I wanted to use all existing light and I'm paying for it in post.

Phil and I have met :)



 
If you want to correct all 2000 the same you can create an action and use the image processor to run it on all the images.
--
Regards,

Tom
 
The skin tones are easily isolated in the red channel.

In an empty layer do an apply image using the red channel and switch from normal to luminosity.

Use the the inverted blue layer as a mask, use curves to make the light parts go to white and the dark portions to black. A really small amount of painting cleans up the mask, not much precision.

Make a copy. Assign an Apple RGB profile. Convert to sRGB .

take the copy and place it above orignal.

Take the the mask previously made from the blue channel and use it to mask in the skintones.

Two to three minutes maximum time used, plus since everything is done with layers the edit is infitely adjustable.

This was done with CS5, can be done with CS4 or CS3.



 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Keyboard shortcuts

f
Forum
m
My threads
Mobile site
About
Editorial content
Cameras & Lenses
Community
All content, design, and layout are Copyright © 1998–2025 Digital Photography Review All Rights Reserved.
Reproduction in whole or part in any form or medium without specific written permission is prohibited.
When you use DPReview links to buy products, the site may earn a commission.
©GPS Media - Guides, Products, Services.
Back
Top