How to perform skin tone selective adjustments?

[rudyryk]

Hi everyone! I'm new to Affinity Photo and I'm very pleased with my first experience!

 

I'm doing my first portrait processing and I've faced the case that I didn't see or missed in tutorials.

 

I'd want to make face skin less reddish in certain areas. I mean some parts of the face are more reddish - like nose and chops, and I want to smoothen that color. How can I do that?

 

Seem like this tutorial (for Photoshop) is a kind of related: http://www.slrlounge.com/how-to-easily-correct-red-blotchy-skin-in-photoshop/- but I believe there's even simpler way in Affinity :)

[Madame]

You can go Select> colour range> select red

If you deselect the parts you don't want, you can use the HSL adjustment layer and the red slider to adjust the saturation.

 

You can ajust the feathering to blend if you have to.

[rudyryk]

Thank you Madame! :) I've tried what you suggested, it worked partially, but not really perfect.

 

I like the overall skin tone on the photo and don't want to change it. When I apply HSL adjustments the overall skin tone also changes.

 

There are some reddish areas without rough borders which I'd like to take down to "average" skin tone while keeping average color unchanged.

[CPP]

I too was going to suggest HSL adjustments by first adding an HSL adjustment layer and then inverting its layer mask by Cmd-I following which you can paint in on the mask in white the areas to which you wish the adjustment to apply.

[rudyryk]

Thank you all! I finally have achieved the acceptable result with HSL adjustments: 1. I desaturated Reds by about 50% and 2. Then I increased Master saturation by about 40% - so the overall skin tone was nearly restored but red areas became less saturated. I've excluded lips from layer mask simply with Selection Brush.

 

I need to practice more with HSL, actually I don't completely understand why it has worked out :)

[Madame]

Learning by playing. :)

Every picture has a different way. The selection needs to be "good".

[rudyryk]

I've learned a simple trick recently - drawing on pixel layer with "Colour" blend mode with necessary color. Worked like a charm! :)

[aslusers]

Thanks for posting this, rudyryk.  The lighten color blend mode worked well for me on an infants skin.  I had to fuss a bit with selecting the paint brush color, but it was easy and quick, otherwise.

 

What a great fix for a tough problem!

[ronnyb]

Try using the Frequency Deparation filter (there are video tutorials) and changing /de saturating the color of the trouble areas only (local adjustment)

[mikerofoto]

I think a local adjustment brush or layer would be nice with AP