Three women - help required. Urgent.

LaFoto · Jan 21, 2006

I know there is a Photoshop Challenge section in the Photo Themes, but I'm afraid people might look into that too late for me.

The kind of help I would wish to get is the following:

I want the very pale skin of the person on the left to be less "sickly", but I want to maintain the brightness and colour of the eyes of the tanned person on the right. Adjusting the curves makes the tanned person VERY dark and her eyes lose a lot, while the pale person gets ok.

I have learned a bit of PS work by now, but all the work with layers still eludes me completely and totally and I really don't know what to do. I would imagine it is through layers that my desired effect can be achieved?

Whoever is willing to help me, would you mind giving me a step-to-step description for total dummies, please (and keep in mind I don't own the latest PS version but PS 6.0 --- quite, quite old).

Before I forget, here is the picture in question:

This is totally unaltered, straight from the camera, and the flash in the woman-on-the-left's glasses isn't too nice, either... This one's only downsized to 1200x800 pixels ... if you need the original size, I can mail it to you.

LaFoto · Jan 21, 2006

Have any possible helpers come online by now?

terri · Jan 21, 2006

I'm sorry I can't help with the PS work, LaFoto, but at the very least I will bump this thread for you.

FWIW, both the skin tones and exposure look fine to me. I don't view the woman's skin tone on the left as sickly. But hopefully someone who is a PS wizard can jump in and make some adjustments for you that you like.

bantor · Jan 21, 2006

I will give it a quick try and see what I can do.

bantor · Jan 21, 2006

Ok, I gave it a go.

I am not sure if this is on par of what you were looking for, but if it is it or close then here is what i did.

First I copied the image and pasted it right over lop, thus creating a new layer. Next I look my polygon laso tool and traced the face of the women on the left. Then I went to Image>Adjustments>Replace color. Then using the color selector I selected somewhere on the forehead. I the adjusted my fuzziness down a bit. I brought the saturation up slightly and that was that for the replace color tool. Then I used the burn tool with a very large brush (large enough to cover the entire face at once) and clicked once with an exposer of 17. That was that. Like i said, I am nor sure if it is quite what you are looking for, but it is just a rendition.

If my explanation is at all unclear, let me know.
Good Luck.

Rob · Jan 21, 2006

My effort

Wally · Jan 21, 2006

Here is my version

I used the magic wand tool to select the face. I am pretty sure magic wand was around even before PS 6. Then with the face selected I did a simple levels adjustment. If I had the high res version I would have gone back afterwards and cleaned up the whites of her eyes, and her hair line using a layer mask, or the eraser tool.

Wally · Jan 21, 2006

LaFoto,

The more I looked at it, the more I felt it needed a little more. So I added a handsom American Man to the picture (me) I think it really makes it

Seriously If you liked what I did in the real version, and are unable to fix it in PS6 I would be more than happy to do it for you. Just email me the Hi Res version [email protected]

Rob · Jan 21, 2006

Wally you are responsible for me spluttering half a can of Stella over my keyboard. OMG that made me laugh.

I don't think it's gonna be quite what Corinna was looking for though!

Rob

ShutteredEye · Jan 21, 2006

My try:

nitefly · Jan 21, 2006

Theres my attempt. As a n00b, I'd appreciate any comments and advice!

LaFoto · Jan 22, 2006

Hey, thank you all, this is sooo cool.

Of course the Wally-version-WITH-Wally is best :biglaugh:

Thank you all for trying to help me, this is much, much, much appreciated.
Of all the versions offered, I think I like Bantor's best: The farthest left woman gets a soft tan, while the farthest right one stays untouched and just like she is. Bantor, if you could give the middle woman the same soft tan, maybe?

What I don't understand in your explanation, Bantor, is what "to paste right over lop" means.

Rob, your version makes the middle woman look really good. I like that. Your version is "colder" than the original, though, while I would like to keep the warm tones. But the eyes of the woman to the right come out very nicely in your version!

Wally, I'm sorry to say so, but you make poor Tatjana look like she's spending most of her time on a sunbed, and I am sure she does not and WOULD not

. But all three of them would, OF COURSE, love to see their photo in the programme brochure for the ballet performance WITH a nice young American in the picture! That one will be top choice

.

Robert, you made the left and middle woman stand out much and paled the righthand one, the tanned one, so much that she seems to vanish ... that was not quite what I was looking for. But you might still want to tell me WHAT you did to achieve this effect? How you managed to change two out of three and give them so many more colours, while the third was made pale?

Nitefly, in your version I see some artefacts in Tatjana's face now - I don't know what you did, but it seems like you are on the way to get to Bantor's version, but something makes Tatjana's face now look like pieces of cotton wool got stuck in her face in places.

Since I am TOTALLY unable to do this, I much appreciate your time given to this and your attempts ... I would not know where to BEGIN!!! Thank you all!

bantor · Jan 22, 2006

I would be more than happy to. What i meant my "paste it right over lop" was paste it right over top (Ctrl + V).

With this one I left the lady on the left the way I had her and slightly changed the tone of skin of the middle women using the same technique.

I gave a quick go at the flash reflection on the glasses, but I was having a hard time with it so I gave up for now.

Let me know what you think, I can make adjustments easily.

LaFoto · Jan 22, 2006

Thank you again, Jess, very nice.
I think the two paler women will feel flattered with this one which gives them a bit more tan than they have (Tatjana is Russian and does have a very white skin naturally, while the woman to the right is of Turkish origin, which accounts for her natural tan - the middle woman is a fair skinned German).
What I have to try to do myself in the future is work with layers...! That is very much on my agenda now!

bantor · Jan 22, 2006

No problem, any time at. Layers are a fairly a simple tool when you get to know them. There isn't much to it actually, mostly just fiddling around... or so I like to believe.