BLACK SKIN TONE DIFFERENCE

[Lorie]

Hi Damien, is there an effective way to lighten the darker areas on her skin? I've tried dodging, without much success. I'm guessing my technique needs your secret sauce. Help!

Edited November 7, 2018 by Lorie
Added 2nd photo

[Damien Symonds]

Hi Lorie, can you remind me which version of Photoshop you have?

[Lorie]

Photoshop CC (current version)

[Damien Symonds]

Thanks.  In that case, I'll be very very interested to hear if this method works for you, since other people with the newest CC have been reporting a problem with it.

Add a blank layer, then with your eyedropper tool choose some of the nice rich skin colour from her upper cheek.  Then add a new "Solid Color" layer of that colour.  Change that layer's blend mode to "Color".

At this point the whole photo should be that colour.  But some people have reported it turns their whole photo green instead.  Can you let me know what happens to yours?

[Damien Symonds]

Don't keep me in suspense, @Lorie!

[Lorie]

So far so good... I'm in between projects so it might take me a while to post the fix.  But the color blend looks to be a nice (non-green) hue. 

[Damien Symonds]

Oh, phew!

So now just invert the mask of that layer, then paint on to the problem areas with a 5% white brush.

[Lorie]

argh. I hate this cc version.  I'm a cs6 girl and I just lost my panel workspace ... wth??   i picked the wrong time to give up drugs and switching from cs6.

 

[Lorie]

OH DAMIEN HOW I LOVE YOU!!!!  Yes, this works.  5% isn't quite enough so I have to play around a bit. 

[Lorie]

you are magical.

 

[Damien Symonds]

That doesn't look quite how I expected.  Are you sure you have the layer blend mode on "Color"?

[Lorie]

You are right!!! I did it correctly on my sample and then defaulted back to normal for my real image.  Does this look more like what you envisioned? also I grabbed skin from her neck because she had a lot of pink in the makeup on her cheeks.

[Damien Symonds]

That's more like it.

[Lorie]

Thank you so much, Damien.  I'll go tidy it up a bit now that I understand the technique. You are The Best in all the world.