For the pros: Add a suntan?

ME
Posted By
mister_eaves
Feb 7, 2007
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711
Replies
10
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Closed
I saw something while reading news aggregators today that reminded me of something I’ve often wondered about in Photoshop: how to make someone look like they’ve got a great tan.

An image of the Duchess of York was published on several websites today. Problem is, some have published a retouched version of the photo. Others have published what appears to be a non-retouched version. Click here <http://i9.tinypic.com/2mebx4m.jpg> to see both side-by-side.

Pardon the JPG artifacts; photos from websites are never the best source. This is obviously the same source photo, but one has been retouched so that the subject’s skin looks much more tan. (Funny that her redeye was left alone.)

I consider myself a Photoshop pro. I’m great at removing blemishes, face shine, wrinkles, and the like. I faithfully use masks and adjustment layers. But what always seems to elude me is how to make someone’s skin look realistically tan. I’ve tried dozens of times, but it always come out looking totally botched.

So, my question: How do you give someone a suntan in Photoshop?
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OO
Omke_Oudeman
Feb 7, 2007
Pardon me for saying but you don’t need to bee a pro to see one picture with nearly blown away highlights and a huge contrast and an other with a huge red colorcast overall, I would not be proud to deliver both of them… 🙂
DR
Donald_Reese
Feb 8, 2007
I do not have a clue how they do it, but i screwed around trying and i found by making a duplicate layer first, then i took the eyedropper and sampled a rich warm tone off the good photo, and hit fill at 100 percent. next i put it on multiply mode and backed off the opacity to 50-60 percent and it was prety darn close. try it and see if you get the same results.
JF
john_findley
Feb 8, 2007
Like Omke suggested, the entire image has been adjusted toward the warm side. This is not the way to add a tanned look.

Pretty heavy handed and, if I might be so bold, ghastly. 🙂
DR
Donald_Reese
Feb 8, 2007
I agree its overdone, but i challenge anyone to use color balance to achieve this warming effect, and if you do,please share how you accomplished it. doing what i suggested seems pretty close,if thats your thing,but maybe there are slicker ways.
B
Buko
Feb 8, 2007
Looks like it was done at the RAW stage, They cranked up the color temp.
DR
Donald_Reese
Feb 8, 2007
That might be a possible answer,but i wonder if they would bother with raw for shots like that. i guess there is a good chance.
ME
mister_eaves
Feb 8, 2007
Good call, Donald. It’s pretty heavyhanded if applying the color to the entire image, but throw a mask on it and remove the color from the hair, eyes, background, wardrobe, etc, and it’s not a bad way to get the look I was going for pretty quickly. I’m sure this is not the way the "professionals" do it, but I don’t much care. It’s a different road to the same destination (or likeness, anyway) and satisfies my needs. Thanks!
JC
Jonathan_Clymer
Feb 8, 2007
The correction can be duplicated almost exactly by a simple curves adjustment. Move the highlight points in the three channels independently. No retouching is necessary. If there is any extra blotchiness its probably due to successive jpeg compression.

<http://i16.tinypic.com/4hlc8q8.jpg>

Jonathan Clymer
NS
neil_steinberg
Feb 12, 2007
NS
neil_steinberg
Feb 12, 2007
Tanned look: Make a new layer. Do a fill with 50% gray, and change blending mode to soft light. Choose a soft paint brush and make sure the foreground color is black. You will need to play around with opacity for lighter and darker areas, but I suggest a starting point of 35%. The brush will act something like a burning tool without all of the problems burning can cause. Take care around the eyes and lips. You have the options of erasing opacity from the new layer, changing opacity, or choosing white as the foreground color which will cause the brush to perform as a lightening/dodging tool. You can, of course, play with color balance, hue/saturation, curves, etc, but you’ll want to lock the adjustment layers to the fill layer.

Neil Steinberg

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