Home » Photo Editing » How to Change Skin Tone in Photoshop

How to Change Skin Tone in Photoshop

Skill level:

Difficulty - 2/5

Tutorial Rating:

Rating - 4/5

Time Required:

Time Required Icon 0 hrs 30 mins
John

Writer: John

I am the developer for tu-torial.com so I hope you find this site helpful. My background is in Fine Arts and I am currently working as a front-end developer for the University of British Columbia. Feel free to connect with me on Twitter.


PREVIEW


Before


Step 1



  • Duplicate layer

  • Set Blending mode to Soft Light at 100%


Step 1


Step 2



  • Go to Image > Adjustment > Selective Color...

  • Pick Black from the drop down, and then add 20% to Black from the spectrum


Step 2


Step 3



  • Select skin areas using Magic Wand Tool(Q)

  • Feather Selection (Alt+Ctrl+D) 5px then

  • Layer Via Copy (Ctrl+J) name it "skin"


Step 3


Step 4



  • Add an Curves adjustment layer (Curves) (Layer > New Adjustment Layer > Curves)



Add a Level layer...



Note: You can duplicate the layer if it isn't strong enough.



Then finally change the Hue/Saturation layer ...



Step 5


[image]


Add colour to the lips



  • Pick the Lasso Tool then draw the selection around her lip

  • Feather selection (5px)

  • Use Hue/Saturation module (Ctrl + U)



6.


And now, shade something ..


    -Stand on layer "skin"


    -Pick Burn Tool, darker some dark area ...



You see? these areas are so bright. Fix it now!!



     -Use EyeDropper, choose a skin tone color


     -Make new layer


     -Use Soft Brush draw into bright areas ( on new
layer )


     -Change Blending mode = " Color "



     -Filter >> Blur >> Gaussian Blur ( 5 > 10 px )



Now, we need some tone color for this image


I choose warm tone


Add one more adjustment layer ( Photo Filter ) and set as I did ..



At last step, you should make a copy-of-merged-layer by using Image >> Apply
Image ( on new blank layer )


Change mode = Screen, discount Opacity ..


You can use Dodge and Burn Tool to shading some skin areas are incorrect ...



This is stock photo



and this is last result !! Have fun :)


Results


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Rate this tutorial!

There are 25 comments
Rod said on January 11, 2010 - 10:17
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great

Dboy said on December 06, 2009 - 11:46
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Damn its... a.... tutorial ...I dont know what people are bitchen about sure she has a good original skin tone, but this is just good info to know how to do, stop bashing the person who made it

ning said on December 01, 2009 - 07:19
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thank you very much!! my qq 651362234

呵 said on November 29, 2009 - 03:09
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nice to meet you. i come from china. duo duo jiaoliu q q:651362234

Just Me said on November 29, 2009 - 00:30
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I don't get it. Why would you want to change her skin tone? The resulting picture looks ugly and unnatural. She had a beautiful tone to begin with. If anything you should be smoothing the skin, not changing the color.

delont said on November 19, 2009 - 23:28
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thanks

Raqib said on November 17, 2009 - 01:10
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SIMPLY BESTEST :) :) :)

joseph said on August 01, 2009 - 04:36
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great tutorial
thanks

Dee said on July 22, 2009 - 06:32
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she looks prettier in the original picture

retoucher77 said on June 04, 2009 - 06:34
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nice job, thanks for that tutorial :)

John said on May 14, 2009 - 12:06
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@ScriptedMIND, Heidi, Tiiz:
I don't think this tutorial is meant to make a statement whether if one skin tone is better than another, so you probably don't want to look at it that way. This site is dedicated to teach, as in, how does one retouch the skin color of a photograph if one wishes to do so.

I know that the descriptions in this tutorial are poorly written so if you get the sense that the original author (which I don't know who it is) is making such a statement, I will rewrite it to make it more "correct".

Thanks,

John,
tu-torial.com Admin

Tiiz said on May 14, 2009 - 11:03
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DARK SKIN IS BEAUTIFUL! This is NOT great work. I'm ashamed that you would think that this is a tutorial worth doing. This is why there is such an issue between darker skinned and lighter skinned persons. The problem exists is parts of Asia as well. This is a sad day when we can't appreciate differences! I agree with ScriptedMind...smoothing yes...total COLOR change from who the person is...NO. Shame. Shame. Shame. I will continue to hang my head.

-ScriptedMIND said on April 05, 2009 - 06:24
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i don't like the fact that you played with her skin colour,
the tone was beautiful as it was, all you truly had to do
was smoothen out her complexion and take away her blemishes,
NOT change her skin colour from being mixed to white.
I do love photoshop and how the industry changes the way people look through it, but i hate what they do with women that aren't that certain colour.
but still great job.

-ScriptedMIND

Johan said on November 14, 2008 - 13:09
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Hmm, really nice tutorial!
Of course I don'tlike what magazines do to women these days, but it is always fun to know HOW they do it

Heidi said on November 06, 2008 - 20:55
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This tutorial is lame. It's bad enough magazines, photographers and the like dilute the beauty of women with olive skin tone or darker.

Schyrise, she is mixed to begin with.

Oops! ( tutorials writer ) said on October 27, 2008 - 10:48
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hi Grace, and sorry for the delay, 2 :((
contact me at oops_000@yahoo.com :P see u soon

Grace said on October 23, 2008 - 16:09
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not sure where to get your contact info, but contact me through me website.
sorry for the delay :P

Schyrise said on September 20, 2008 - 12:27
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I really like the tutorial, but she does really seem to be a completely different race now. It's a little odd, why get rid of the nice olive tones of her skin?

Bombchell said on September 03, 2008 - 15:09
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lol @ the models comment.

Its a nice tutorial for fun. But she seems a different race now to me, so if i tried it, I'd keep it less light.

Onya said on August 16, 2008 - 16:34
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She werent even dark to begin with, or yellow. She is olive skinned.

tutorials writer said on August 15, 2008 - 23:05
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@to: Grace Agosta : sr u about that, just because i luv this pic :"> can you contact me ?

neisha said on August 12, 2008 - 15:03
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how do i do my photo like that

Adam said on July 16, 2008 - 15:35
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That's not very good haha. Looks like she has a bunch of hotspots and overexposure throughout.

Grace Agosta (model in the image) said on July 16, 2008 - 15:29
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I'm Italian, not Indian... but great work :)

ella said on July 13, 2008 - 16:12
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wooooww that was really awesome~ ^o^ I LIKE IT..
good job... but i can't find the thing i was looking for... i'm really getting confused now~

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