How To Fix Uneven Skin Tone In Photoshop

In this video, I'm going to show you how to fix pare tones in Photoshop!

We volition utilize a powerful curves adjustment hack that volition permit you to click once and fix pare tones. This technique will be a bully addition to your portrait retouching workflow.

You will have to fine-tune the image afterwards you apply the initial aligning, but Photoshop will do most of the difficult work for you lot.

You only take to experiment with Opacity or Blending Modes to see what gives y'all a better result.

Prepare Skin Tones in Photoshop With The Curves Aligning Layer

In this tutorial, nosotros will take advantage of the Eyedropper Tools in the Curves Aligning Layer.

The Eyedropper tools will allow you lot to set custom colors, and we will use them to set skin tones.

Before we fix the skin tones in a portrait, we will accept a wait as to what the Eyedropper Tools in the Curves Aligning Layer do, and how we could customize them to achieve the result that we want.

This video is not just about fixing skin tones in Photoshop, information technology contains a ton of useful tips and tricks. So make sure that you stick around to the end!

Skin Tone CC Library Colors

I've created this free Artistic Cloud Library where you lot tin download the skin tone swatches to your computer.

Fix Skin Tones in Photoshop Swatches — Click on the swatches to go to a Creative Cloud page where you save them into your account.
Or save the epitome into your computer if you do not have a Creative Cloud business relationship.

Choose Window > Info.

As you hover over the image pixels, the RGB values in the Info panel will change. Every bit a rule of pollex, a neat skin tone means the Red value is higher than the Green, and the Green value is higher than the Blue.

In this paradigm, the Cherry-red value is lower than the Green, which indicates that information technology is not the appropriate skin tone.

In this tutorial, you'll learn how to use the Curves adjustment layer to fix skin tones in Photoshop with merely ane click!

Organize the Photoshop Document

Get-go with organizing your Photoshop document by creating a new Grouping and naming it every bit "Retouch."

Click on the Portrait layer and select the Quick Option tool and employ it to choose the areas that need pare tone correction, including the pilus where the skin also shows.

To subtract an area from the selection, agree Alt (Windows) or Option (macOS) as you click-and-drag on the areas to deselect.

With the option active, select the Group, and click on the New Layer Mask icon to create a new Layer Mask that applies to the Group. This as well means you can utilize multiple adjustment layers controlled by the same Layer Mask.

That means when you create a Curves adjustment layer while you have the Group selected, it will announced inside of the Group, and any adjustments you make will only touch on the contents of that mask.

Curves Eyedropper Explanation

With the Curves adjustment layer selected, become to the Properties console and annotation the Eyedropper tools on the left side.

Black Eyedropper – sample in the paradigm to set up black signal (any area you lot select with this Eyedropper turns to black).

Gray Eyedropper – sample in the image to set up grayness bespeak (whatever area you lot select with this Eyedropper turns to gray).

White Eyedropper – sample in the image to set white betoken (any surface area you select with this Eyedropper turns to white).

With that shown, click on the reset icon to kickoff anew.

Custom Colors With The Curves Eyedropper

Double-click on the Black Eyedropper and select a night red color.

On the Dialog box asking you if you want to prepare the target colors as defaults, click on the "No" button.

Then, using the Blackness Eyedropper to click on a pilus area, y'all will notice how the dark red is now the darkest color in the image.

Double-click on the White Eyedropper and set the color to a low-cal dark-green.

When the Dialog box pops upwards again, printing "No."

And so, use the White Eyedropper to click on the highlights of the face. Now, your brightest points are all in the shade of lite green.

If you render to the Properties panel, the white point and the blackness indicate has been changed on each aqueduct in the Adjustment panel.

Y'all can command each R, Thousand, and B channel past clicking on the drop-downward menu.

You may use a Grey Eyedropper to neutralize the prototype.

If you refer back to the Adjustment console, the white and blackness points take not changed, only the mid-tones.

If yous double-click on the Grey Eyedropper, it brings up the Color Picker window where the Grey is at 50%.

You lot can also change that to a different colour, such as Magenta.

Printing OK to go out the window.

Then, click on a mid-tone in the background, and the face up color changes to the verbal shade of royal you set on the Color Picker window.

This whole procedure shows you how you can quickly fix skin tones in Photoshop with just one click.

At present, reset the Curves adjustment layer.

Relieve the Free Skin Tone CC Library

The key is to double-click on the Greyness Eyedropper and gear up the skin tone colour on the Color Picker window to alter the skin tone.

For this i, PTC has a CC library of skin tones y'all can readily use, and you tin download information technology past clicking here.

If y'all don't have Photoshop CC, you tin can screenshot the color library and use the Eyedropper tool to sample a color and use information technology for the pare tone!

Use a Pare Colour Correction with 1-Click!

Once you take them in your library, click on whatever skin tones to prepare it as the Foreground color.

Select the Curves adjustment layer.

On the Backdrop panel, double-click on the Grey Eyedropper and select the skintone set equally the Foreground colour. So, press OK.

On the dialog box, click NO and then that information technology doesn't set as the default.

On the Options bar, ready the Sample Size to 11 by eleven Boilerplate, this means you will sample the average pixel on a parameter of eleven×11 pixels.

So, utilize the Grayness Eyedropper tool to select the skin.

Fine-Tune the Peel Color Correction

The electric current skin tone is up for adjustments from this bespeak.

For starters, the new peel tone should not touch on the optics. Select the Layer Mask and the Castor tool.

Then, set the Foreground color to black (#000000) and paint over its eyes to unselect information technology.

Here's a cool trick with the Fade command:

Enlarge the castor and set the Foreground colour to white (#ffffff).

Paint over the eyes to reveal the effect once once again.

Choose Edit > Fade Brush tool.

On the Fade window, adjusting the Opacity means reducing your previous step's opacity and, in this case, reducing the opacity erasing the peel tone consequence on the eyes so y'all can control the color's intensity.

For this edit, set it at l% Opacity.

Select the Curves adjustment layer and reduce the layer's opacity to make the peel tone wait more realistic.

Using the Dark Skin Tone Colour Swatches

Increase the Opacity of the Curves adjustment layer to 100%.

On the Library console, select a dark skin tone.

On the Layers panel, select the Curves adjustment layer.

Back on the Properties console, click on the Grayness Eyedropper.

On the Color Picker window, gear up the color to the selected night skin tone on your Foreground colour. On the dialog box, click on No.

You may notice it has changed his peel tone, but he's still white and did not turn darker, and that'southward because the gray point just changes the midtones and does not change the black or white points.

Control the Skin Tone Brightness

If y'all set the Blending mode to Color, it will not use new luminosity only will utilise the luminosity of the background instead—the original luminous values—and letting the Curves adjustment layer accept care of the hue and saturation.

Adjacent, create a Levels adjustment layer.

Set the Blending Mode to Luminosity, so information technology but affects the luminous values and use this layer to command the brightness of the pare tone.

Y'all can also create a Vibrance adjustment layer to control the Saturation of the image.

Click here to larn more about Vibrance and Saturation!

Now you see that with this Group lonely, yous tin can control the entire adjustment and the peel tone with but i click!

Add a New Colour Swatch To Your Library

To add a new color swatch to your CC Library, select a color that you want to add together to the library and prepare it as the Foreground color.

Click on the plus icon > Foreground colour.

The selected Foreground color is in the library, and rename the color past double-clicking on the proper name.

To delete a color from the library, click-and-drag the color towards the trash icon.

Compare the Terminal Skin Tone RGB Values

When yous hover your cursor over the face, the Info panel displays two sets of values: the original values (left) or the values created with the adjustment layer (right).

Compared to the values before, yous will come across that the ruddy is now higher than the light-green value, and the dark-green is higher than the blueish—resulting in a more vibrant skin tone.