Showin Off

I was very surprised to come back and see the same old threads still. I remember when this forum was full of life. So, I decided to add a new thread and I guess I will post some of the last few things I did for you to look at and whatever.

That is some seriously fine work, but coming from you I'm not at all surprised. Most excellent!

Thank you ATNO, most appreciated. Here, I meant to post the before and after for you guys to check out but I was at work.



I hope this will spark some questions, ask away.

How do you target specific areas for color/tone changes without having your selections bleed into areas they shouldn't ?

I try occasionally, but I always have smudges and mis-steps that stick out like a sore thumb. I've been getting closer using vector masks and multiple layers, but even when I'm using non-destructive alterations like that I have a hard time getting it right when I even can at all.

I use adjustment layers, particularly Hue & Saturation. Specifically, her lips and finger nails I used adjust. layer like so;

create adjust layer and select to adjust red hues only, using the hue slider I turned red to purple, pushed the saturation up and the lightness down, next I filled the layer with black, finally I zoom in real tight and using a brush set to brush size 1-2 pixels, hardness 10%, opacity 100%, flow 90% and with white I paint over the desired areas (lips and finger nails).

Note: Because the adjustment layer is only affecting the red hues in the image even if you paint outside the lines a little bit there is no noticeable change if any. Also, the adjustment layer has color sliders at the bottom, great for better defining your target areas.

Oh wow, talk about granular control.

I was just looking at the hair in the Porcelain Doll, I can't imagine being able to lighten her complexion like that without adding odd highlights to the hair color.

On the Porcelain Doll I used a curves adjustment layer to initially lighten the skin at the same time I used it to darken the hair, then on a new layer set to lighten I used a wide brush opacity about 30% flow to about 10% and proceeded to lighten specific areas on the face; forehead, nose, cheeks,chin, etc., then, with opacity set to 10% I went over the areas with hair, then with my eraser size to about 8 opacity 10% flow 80% I went over the hair removing any faint highlights.

Note: Precision work I do precisely as possible at least 3x zoom so that any errors are invisible to the naked eye.