HI there, this is Unmesh from PiXimperfect.
And today I'm going to show you how to equalise and create a uniform skintone in Photoshop.
If you wish to directly skip to the technique, you can please go to this duration (04:36).
Otherwise, I would highly recommend that you watch this video from the beginning because
we have got to do a lot of preparations before we apply this technique.
So, without any further ado, let's get started.
So, here we are in the magical world of Photoshop.
And if you want to go ahead and download this photo and follow along, check the links in
the description.
Now, keep in mind, I have taken a challenging image on purpose.
Now, have a look at it.
It's already very dark.
It isn't a good base to start with.
So, let's create a Curves Adjustment layer and brighten it a little bit.
So, click on the Adjustment Layer icon and then choose Curves.
Now, just the simple Hand tool right there, click on there, and then maybe you want to
click and drag it up on the skin.
So, let's just take it up a little bit.
Now, as you can see, have a look at the histogram, there's a lot of empty space right there.
So, we can drag this slider to the left, just like this.
Just make sure you're not losing details.
And the way to do that is this, you can hold the Alt key or the Option key, and then drag
the slider.
Let me just make it a little larger.
Now, hold the Alt key or the Option key, and when you drag it to the left, you see the
artefacts.
If you go too high, it begins to show these artefacts.
It means that those areas are losing details.
You don't want to go that far.
So, I'm going to keep it at about that.
That is fine.
And maybe take this up, just like that.
Now, we have a bright base to start with, just so that we have something final.
So, press Ctrl + Alt + Shift + E /Command + Option + Shift + E on a Mac.
It creates a merged layer of everything that you see on the canvas right now.
And you can name this Brightened.
Now, it's time for us to remove the blemishes.
You already know how to do that.
There are tonnes of tutorials on this channel on doing that.
So, you need to zoom in just a little bit.
It's great if you zoom in 100%.
So, with the magnifying glass selected over here, just click on 100%.
You'll be zoomed in 100%.
So, you'll see a pixel by pixel readout.
So, if your image has 1000 pixels, so the image will take exactly 1000 pixels of your
screen.
So, one pixel of the image is going to reflect on one pixel of your screen.
Now what we need to do is to create a new layer.
Click on the New Layer button and you can name this Blemishes.
I'm so sorry about that.
Now, let's take the Regular Healing Brush tool, the second one and zoom in.
We can just zoom in 100% because if we zoom in too much, we tend to make it too artificial.
So again, let's go 100% and then with the help of the Regular Healing Brush tool, make
sure the Sample is Current & Below and make the Brush a little larger.
So, with the help of the bracket keys or you can hold the Alt or Option, right mouse button,
drag it to the right to make it bigger, left to make it smaller.
On a Mac, that would be Ctrl + Option and then drag with the mouse button.
Alright, so let's take a sample by holding the Alt key or the Option key, click on to
take a sample and then simply just remove these blemishes.
As simple as that.
Now, I have already done this for you.
Let me skip to that.
Now, as you can see, all the blemishes are removed.
Here's the before, here is the after.
If you look closely, I've also improved the lip lining.
If you want to learn how to do that, watch this video.
It's got a very detailed video on to that.
Let me open this group.
Just simple layers.
I removed the major blemishes and then corrected the lips and then we are good to go.
Let's collapse this.
The next step is Frequency Separation and I've already applied Frequency Separation
on this one.
Let's have a look at the before and after.
So, here is the before and here is the after.
I've used it to remove all those dark or extra bright patches in the skin colour, not a part
of the blemish.
Blemish, we took care of that earlier.
Here's the before, here is the after.
And for this particular image, I used PHP method of frequency separation, which you
can watch right here.
It's very easy.
And I just used the first step that is Patching.
You don't have to use all the three steps that is patching, healing and polishing.
The first step is more than enough for most of the images.
After that, I did some additional correction here and there, just extra blemishes here
and there.
So, the lips were not looking right, so I just corrected it.
Have a look.
Before - after.
That's it.
Now, we are finally ready to equalise the skin tones and the way we do that is by taking
samples from the skin and applying the same colours throughout.
So you can take a sample of the highlights, mid tones and shadows.
Let's create a new layer.
Click on the New Layer button.
At the top, a new layer will be created.
And this is just for samples, right.
We can delete it later or just make it invisible.
First let's make sure the eyedropper tool is right.
So, select the eyedropper tool and make sure Sample - Current & Below is selected or All
Layers is selected.
Now, for this example, let's choose Current & Below and Sample Size, let's choose 5.5
Average.
So, it's going to make a box of 5 by 5 pixels and pick the average colour.
We don't want to sample that one pixel that represents the noise.
We don't want to do that.
So 5 by 5 is fine.
Now, with the Brush tool selected, make sure you take a Hard Round Brush right there, and
then let's take a sample from the bright areas.
So, hold the Alt or Option with the Brush tool selected and click to take a sample.
So let's take this sample for the bright area.
This is fine, and we're going to paint it right there.
Now, keep in mind, we're not painting over the subject.
This is on a separate layer which you can turn off and on.
Now, let's take in some midtone samples.
So, what do you think?
This one?
Or let's choose something like this.
It's okay.
Let's make it a little darker.
This is fine.
These are the midtones.
Now, keep in mind, you can always edit these colours later.
This is not a hard and fast rule that you have to just use these colours.
You can change them.
Now, for the shadows, let's take the darkest area from the skin.
So, don't take too dark.
This is fine.
Now we have something to start our work with.
Please use this as a starting point.
Now, let's select the layer below the samples layer so that when we create a new Adjustment
layer, it is created below the samples layer.
Guess what Adjustment layer we're going to use.
Gradient Maps.
It maps the highlights, midtones and shadows of the colours you choose to that of the image.
So, click on the Adjustment Layer icon and then choose Gradient Map right here.
Now, inside of Gradient Map, let's zoom out quite a bit, right side represents the highlights
and the left side represents the shadows.
So, single click on in right here and then let's start picking all these colours.
Now, make sure the Sample is All Layers.
Now, select the right hand side, single click on it and if you pick a colour it is not picking
anything.
I always do this mistake on purpose.
Why is that?
Because the Mask is selected.
Cancel it.
Cancel it again.
Make sure this symbol is selected, not the mMsk.
Mask is white.
With that's selected, single click in here, click on the right hand side slider at the
bottom, single click on the colour and let's choose this colour at the top for the highlights.
Now, here is the trick.
A lot of people will tell you, 'Let's choose this for highlights and place it all the way
through right.
Let's choose this for shadows and place it all the way to the left.'
Well the trick really is when you picked this colour, right, you picked this colour, have
a look at the brightness level.
This is something a lot of people miss.
This is 95.
Hit OK and accordingly you will place the slider into the location - 95.
So let's dial in a 95.
Right.
Now let's create one more slider in the middle, single click in here, let's pick the middle
colour, right.
What is the brightness level?
85.
Now, these are not hard and fast rules, but you can use this as a reference.
Hit OK.
And we're going to place it at 85.
Great.
And let's pick this one.
The third colour.
What is this colour?
This colour is 35.
Okay, let's place it at 35.
Now, whenever you see a drastic difference, that's when you know you need to just work
on this to make the gradient a little smoother.
There is no hard and fast rule that you have to follow.
Once this is all nice, just hit OK.
Now change the Blend Mode from Normal to Colour because you don't want to change the luminosity
of this.
You don't want to play with the brightness or the light of this.
You just want to change the colour.
So Change the Blend Mode from Normal to Colour.
And there you have it, the skin edited.
Just kidding.
It's kind of too much at this point.
Let's hide the samples there.
Now we need to mask in the skin.
But I'm too lazy to do that.
Why don't we select the skin colour already?
So, here's what we do.
First of all, let's turn it off.
Turn off the Gradient Map.
Now select the Mask in here, right, and then go Select and then Colour Range.
So first of all, always make sure Sample Size is 5 by 5, this is fine, or 3 by 3, whatever
you like, and Sample - All Layers is checked.
Just make sure that is done.
Now, let's start selecting the skin colour.
With the first eyedropper, select it, decrease the Fuzziness to zero.
Just pick on the skin.
That's it.
Now, with the '+' eyedropper, the second one right here, you can just draw along the skin
tones.
You don't have to go click, click, click.
Just click and draw.
Drag it all around the skin.
This is fine.
Once most of the skin is selected in here, white are the areas which are selected, black
are the areas which are not selected.
If you have selected, Selection, right.
Now let's increase Fuzziness.
It's going to select some of the background.
That's fine.
That's not a problem.
But, it looks pretty okay.
Now, once you're happy with the selection, just hit OK.
It already creates a Mask.
You don't have to do anything.
There is a Mask already created.
Now, hold the Alt or Option, click on the Mask to show the Mask to bring it up and now
let's work on this.
Paint black on the areas which is not the skin and white on the areas which is the skin.
So take the Brush, press D to reset the swatches to black and white.
Now, press X to toggle between the foreground and the background and just paint black on
the areas which is not the skin.
Let's select the Soft Round Brush.
You don't have to be super accurate, but, if you are accurate, great.
That will work in your favour.
But I'm doing it super quick in here.
Also, the skin colour has got into the eyes.
So, let's paint it away.
I know it looks weird and crazy at this point but, I hope you'll understand.
Now, press X to make the foreground colour white and just fill in the skin.
Make sure all of the skin is painted on.
This looks pretty okay.
Hold the Alt or Option, click on the Mask.
Now, turn this Gradient Map on, and your skin is fixed.
Just kidding.
It's kind of too much.
So, decrease the Opacity.
So, I'm going to increase it slowly and gradually.
Have a look at it.
The skin is a little greenish in here.
Here, it's a little bit yellowish.
The body, as you can see, is a little pinkish.
So, once you begin to increase the Opacity, have a look, all of them equalise, slowly
and gradually.
So for this example, we're going to choose 45.
I'm going a little higher than usual.
I usually choose 30.
But to show you the difference, let's go 55 on this one.
And have a look at the before and after.
Here is the before.
Not everything is matching.
The saturation is kind of not good.
Now, let's turn it on.
The colour looks so good and great, but it's still a little yellowish.
As I said, use those colours as a starting point.
Now it's time for us to edit those colours.
Now, double click on this to bring this up, single click on that bar.
Now let's change the colour to a little more red.
See, we are just introducing some pink in there.
Hit OK.
Now, select this one, single click and we can make it a little more pinkish.
We're just correcting it real time in here.
That's fine.
I like that colour.
You can also play with the highlights a little bit.
Now keep in mind, I'm just playing with the hue.
That's it.
This slider.
If I take it up too much, it's going to make those highlights greenish.
We don't want that.
I think I like this colour.
I'm gonna hit OK.
This is fine for us.
And OK.
There you go.
Have a look at it.
Here's the before, here is the after.
We fixed it.
Now, I wouldn't go 55.
I would go 30.
But to show you, this is what we do.
You can also add an additional Curves Adjustment layer to correct the colours overall.
So, let's click on the Adjustment Layer icon and choose Curves.
And now, I think I'm going to go to my Blue channel, and let's increase the blues.
I think it's a little bit towards the yellow side.
Blue is the opposite of yellow.
So, if I increase the blues a little bit, it might tackle that.
So, click a point in the middle.
Now, you can take it up with your mouse or your tablet, that's fine.
But here, I want it a little slow, so I would take it up with the arrow keys.
So, here is the middle one.
So, slowly and gradually.
You don't want to go too high.
Just tap it.
Now, let's have a look.
Here's the before, here's the after.
A little better.
All right.
Now let's go to the Green channel.
Let's try decreasing it.
Let's see what happens.
Too magenta.
If increase it, too green.
Maybe I'm gonna keep it normal.
Let's go to the Red channel.
Let's try increasing or decreasing it.
Let's decrease the reds a little bit.
It's too much red.
We can use the arrow keys again.
Have a look.
Here's the before, here's the after.
It's much more calmed down.
Alright, now that the colours are right, I think brightening the shadows would make the
skin more appealing.
So, let's create one more Curves Adjustment layer.
Click on the Adjustment layer icon and let's choose Curves.
Now, take it up just like that.
You're just brightening the shadows.
We don't want it on the highlights.
So, double click on the right hand side of the Adjustment layer, and now take it away
from the highlights by taking the slider of the underlying layer from right to left.
We're taking the effect of Curves away from the highlights.
We just want to keep it in the shadows.
Now, it's very harsh, right?
So hold the Alt key or the Option key, click on the slider to break it apart and break
it apart in both ways.
Now, it might make the image look a little flat.
That's not a problem.
Hit OK.
You know who's our best friend?
Opacity.
Decrease the Opacity and everything will be fixed.
Now, slowly and gradually increase it.
So for this, let's keep it at 35.
I think it's too high.
Let's keep it 30.
All right, have a look.
Here's the before, here's the after.
Made the skin a little more even, but it's lacking contrast.
So let's create one more Curves Adjustment layer just for contrast.
So click on the Adjustment layer icon and then choose Curves.
Now here, Idon't want to darken the same areas again.
So, with the help of the Hand tool, maybe let's go to a dark area just like that, and
click and drag it down.
Just for a little bit of contrast.
I'm going to drag it down from here.
Now, let's brighten up the midtones back again.
Have a look at the difference.
So here's the before, here's the after.
Just a touch of contrast.
Now, after we do this.. we are humans, and it's a tendency for humans to go a little
overboard with colours or contrast, so on and so forth.
Now, in this image, I think the saturation is too much.
So, let's create the Hue/Saturation Adjustment layer and just slightly decrease the saturation.
Maybe let's go for -10.
That would be more than enough.
And even -8 would do the job.
Now, let's have the overall look at the before and after.
Let's make a group of all of these colour layers.
So, select the first one, hold the Shift key and select the last one which was the Gradient
Map.
Everything in between will be selected.
Then press Ctrl or Command + G.
Now, you can name this Skin Colour.
Let's have a look.
Here is the before, here is the after.
It's so much better, right?
Before - after.
I think we went a little too much in brightening the shadows.
So, before - after.
I think we need to go even lower.
Let's go 20 on this one.
Now, let's have a look at the overall before and after.
Here's the before, here's the after.
And as always, you can select the group and decrease the Opacity and slowly and gradually
increase it.
For this, let's go 80 and we are pretty much good to go.
So, that's how to unify skin tones in Photoshop.
Just a quick little recap.
The main technique is first of all, taking the samples of the highlights, shadows and
midtones.
Once you have those samples painted, we need to create a Gradient Map using those samples.
And then once you create the Gradient Map, once you place the sliders at the right location,
looking at the brightness level, you can just play with the location a little bit to suit
it best and then change the Blend Mode of the Gradient Map Adjustment layer to Colour
and you'll be good.
Please don't use the sampled colours as an endpoint.
Use them as a starting point and you can always change those colours accordingly.
And after that you can create as many Curves Adjustment layers to improve the colour or
the contrast.
And that was pretty much it for this video.
I hope this video helped you and if it did, make sure to give us a like and also don't
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I'll see you guys in my next one.
Until then, stay tuned and make sure that you keep creating.