Want to use the HSL Colour Picker Tool to reduce greyish Tone on Face ?

[augustya]

HI Guys,

Wanted to know lets say If I have a Photo of a Person and there is this Tint or any kind of hue on her face and if I want to use the HSL adjustment Layer and in that I want to use the colour Picker and first identify which tone is it and then either increase its negative value or increase its positive value based on what correction I want to do, but the problem in using the colour picker is unless you first select a Colour from the available colours at the bottom, the Colour Picker tool does not get activated to be able  to use it to place it on the subject to find out the Tint/Hue colour ?

And if I go ahead and already select a colour family from the bottom available colours like Red or Yellow then how do I reduce the Tint on a person's face ? lets say it is a grey tin ? then ? which colour do I choose  from the bottom to activate the colour picker tool ?

Please see the attached image.

 

[Dan C]

On 9/22/2023 at 10:24 AM, augustya said:

I want to use the colour Picker and first identify which tone is it and then either increase its negative value or increase its positive value based on what correction I want to do, but the problem in using the colour picker is unless you first select a Colour from the available colours at the bottom, the Colour Picker tool does not get activated to be able  to use it to place it on the subject to find out the Tint/Hue colour ?

I'm not 100% certain which 'Picker' you're referring to here, as the HSL Adjustment dialog has a Colour Picker tool built in, as well as the separate Colour Picker Tool.

When selecting one of the colour wells in the HSL adjustment, the 'Picker' button can now be selected. From the help file -

Quote

this allows you to sample a specific colour family from your image on which to base your adjustment. The currently active solid colour circle will be updated after picking; the Master circle cannot be colour picked.

This picker built into the HSL adjustment is designed to specify the colour range you want to adjust the values for - not to actively 'pick' a colour, for the adjustment to match to.

Unfortunately the HSL adjustment can't directly 'pick' or used a previously picked colour to automatically adjust values to match the 'picked' colour, this simply isn't how it's designed.

On 9/22/2023 at 10:24 AM, augustya said:

And if I go ahead and already select a colour family from the bottom available colours like Red or Yellow then how do I reduce the Tint on a person's face ? lets say it is a grey tin ? then ? which colour do I choose  from the bottom to activate the colour picker tool ?

You may find the Selective Colour Adjustment is better suited for this, as you can choose to target only the 'Neutrals' or 'Black' tones in the image using this - but of course this will differ depending on the image and level of adjustment required, so I'd recommend experimenting with a few adjustments to see what suits the workflow best

[augustya]

1 hour ago, Dan C said:

I'm not 100% certain which 'Picker' you're referring to here, as the HSL Adjustment dialog has a Colour Picker tool built in, as well as the separate Colour Picker Tool.

When selecting one of the colour wells in the HSL adjustment, the 'Picker' button can now be selected. From the help file -

This picker built into the HSL adjustment is designed to specify the colour range you want to adjust the values for - not to actively 'pick' a colour, for the adjustment to match to.

Unfortunately the HSL adjustment can't directly 'pick' or used a previously picked colour to automatically adjust values to match the 'picked' colour, this simply isn't how it's designed.

You may find the Selective Colour Adjustment is better suited for this, as you can choose to target only the 'Neutrals' or 'Black' tones in the image using this - but of course this will differ depending on the image and level of adjustment required, so I'd recommend experimenting with a few adjustments to see what suits the workflow best

Hi @Dan C

I was refering to the colour picker tool as pointed in this screenshot. So you are saying the HSL Tool can only help me target colours as available in the available colour dialog box if there is any other colour that I have to Target like Grey or Black you are saying selective colour tool would be a better option ? is that what you are saying ?

But the learning is very steep in Affinity Photo 😞 I don't know how do I use a Selective Colours Tool if I have to Target and reduce a grey hue or a purple hue that I want to reduce in the person's face. 

[Old Bruce]

12 minutes ago, augustya said:

are saying the HSL Tool can only help me target colours as available in the available colour dialog box if there is any other colour that I have to Target

 

On 9/22/2023 at 2:24 AM, augustya said:

the problem in using the colour picker is unless you first select a Colour from the available colours at the bottom, the Colour Picker tool does not get activated to be able  to use it to place it on the subject to find out the Tint/Hue colour ?

Those six colours are simply defaults, they are there to be overridden with the actual real life colours you or I want to use. They are just starting points.

In a real life situation I may have three separate colours of orange that I need to alter. I can use the colour picket to override the Red, Green, and Blue. Now I have my three colours and I can alter them one by one and constantly go back to them.

[augustya]

12 minutes ago, Old Bruce said:

 

Those six colours are simply defaults, they are there to be overridden with the actual real life colours you or I want to use. They are just starting points.

In a real life situation I may have three separate colours of orange that I need to alter. I can use the colour picket to override the Red, Green, and Blue. Now I have my three colours and I can alter them one by one and constantly go back to them.

But what if the subject in my photo has some greyish tint coming on his face ? If that is the case which colour do I choose only if I choose the colour ? the picker tool becomes enabled otherwise it remains disabled.

[Dan C]

33 minutes ago, augustya said:

But what if the subject in my photo has some greyish tint coming on his face ?

Again, the HSL tool isn't really designed for Grey tones.

53 minutes ago, augustya said:

I don't know how do I use a Selective Colours Tool if I have to Target and reduce a grey hue or a purple hue that I want to reduce in the person's face. 

Have you checked the Helpfile page for the Selective Colour Tool?
There are also tutorials which cover every adjustment in Affinity, such as:

 

[augustya]

3 minutes ago, Dan C said:

Again, the HSL tool isn't really designed for Grey tones.

Have you checked the Helpfile page for the Selective Colour Tool?
There are also tutorials which cover every adjustment in Affinity, such as:

 

😟😟😟 Again steep Learning !!

[Old Bruce]

43 minutes ago, augustya said:

But what if the subject in my photo has some greyish tint coming on his face ? If that is the case which colour do I choose only if I choose the colour ? the picker tool becomes enabled otherwise it remains disabled.

I would select the area of the "greyish tint" * and use that selection to make a coloured pixel layer filling the selected area with the 'proper' colour then set that pixel layer to a blend of Overlay or Colour and adjust the opacity of it.

* I am not certain that Grey can have or be a "tint". I think you have a low saturation area. It is quite difficult to suggest a method of fixing a problem without an example. Could you post an image that is giving you this problem.

[augustya]

12 minutes ago, Old Bruce said:

I would select the area of the "greyish tint" *

Select an area of only greyish tint in a face in a photo how do you do that ?

[Old Bruce]

2 minutes ago, augustya said:

Select an area of only greyish tint in a face in a photo how do you do that ?

Depends on the photo. Example please.

[augustya]

On 9/25/2023 at 8:58 PM, Old Bruce said:

Depends on the photo. Example please.

Sorry for the delay. Here you go. If I want to reduce or get rid of this kind of discoloration on the skin what is the best way to do it ? How do I pick this colour in the Picker tool provided in the HSL tool ?

 

[smadell]

Hello @augustya. As far as how to pick the color in the HSL tool, you don't. As @Dan C said, the HSL tool is pretty bad at dealing with greys. There is so little saturation, that hue gets kind of lost in the shuffle. Also, as he suggested, the Selective Color tool is the way to go. What you'll want to do is (i) select the area of skin that you want to correct; (ii) optionally, put it on a separate layer; (iii) apply the Selective Color adjustment to the selected area only. (In my example, below, I've made it a child of the copied "forehead." You could do the same by making a selection and then, with the selection active, adding a Selective Color adjustment. The active selection will mask the adjustment so that only the selected areas are affected.

In the Selective Color adjustment, you'll want to deal with Whites, Neutrals, and Blacks (although not in this case). What you're about to do is "add" color to the highlights and midtones of the selected area. In this case, I deselected the "relative" checkbox and made modest changes to the Cyan, Magenta, and Yellow sliders for the Whites and the Neutrals. I also shifted the "Black" slider for each in order to lighten or darken the affected tones.

Here is a before and after of your photo, and also a copy of the Layers panel and the Whites & Neutrals area of the Selective Color adjustment panel.

[augustya]

11 hours ago, smadell said:

Hello @augustya. As far as how to pick the color in the HSL tool, you don't. As @Dan C said, the HSL tool is pretty bad at dealing with greys. There is so little saturation, that hue gets kind of lost in the shuffle. Also, as he suggested, the Selective Color tool is the way to go. What you'll want to do is (i) select the area of skin that you want to correct; (ii) optionally, put it on a separate layer; (iii) apply the Selective Color adjustment to the selected area only. (In my example, below, I've made it a child of the copied "forehead." You could do the same by making a selection and then, with the selection active, adding a Selective Color adjustment. The active selection will mask the adjustment so that only the selected areas are affected.

In the Selective Color adjustment, you'll want to deal with Whites, Neutrals, and Blacks (although not in this case). What you're about to do is "add" color to the highlights and midtones of the selected area. In this case, I deselected the "relative" checkbox and made modest changes to the Cyan, Magenta, and Yellow sliders for the Whites and the Neutrals. I also shifted the "Black" slider for each in order to lighten or darken the affected tones.

Here is a before and after of your photo, and also a copy of the Layers panel and the Whites & Neutrals area of the Selective Color adjustment panel.

So how did you only select the Forehead on the Photo ? And when you say put it on separate layer as in how did you create a separate layer ? And what if someone wants to work on Forehead and cheeks and chin then ? How can you make separate sections for separate areas then ?

[Max P]

More easy for me 

16 bit for the precision 
  1 Make a provisional B&W version
  2 Use the pen tool to select the area on the forehead roughly to start and  use  a dynamic Gaussian blur for a smooth transition edge
  3 Use the dropper to select the right grey value and fill this area 
  4 Delete the B&W version
  5  Now switch the curve layer to divide mode (around  15 40% opacity  )  
    Adapt  the gray component if necessary with the color wheel  and perhaps the color with the peripheral circle a  little green ?..

6 With the node retouch the limit on the area. 

7 Review all dynamic parameters

to retouch another area in this way, you need to make a copy of the initial layer and repeat this process

 

 

 

[augustya]

On 9/27/2023 at 12:58 AM, smadell said:

Hello @augustya. As far as how to pick the color in the HSL tool, you don't. As @Dan C said, the HSL tool is pretty bad at dealing with greys. There is so little saturation, that hue gets kind of lost in the shuffle. Also, as he suggested, the Selective Color tool is the way to go. What you'll want to do is (i) select the area of skin that you want to correct; (ii) optionally, put it on a separate layer; (iii) apply the Selective Color adjustment to the selected area only. (In my example, below, I've made it a child of the copied "forehead." You could do the same by making a selection and then, with the selection active, adding a Selective Color adjustment. The active selection will mask the adjustment so that only the selected areas are affected.

In the Selective Color adjustment, you'll want to deal with Whites, Neutrals, and Blacks (although not in this case). What you're about to do is "add" color to the highlights and midtones of the selected area. In this case, I deselected the "relative" checkbox and made modest changes to the Cyan, Magenta, and Yellow sliders for the Whites and the Neutrals. I also shifted the "Black" slider for each in order to lighten or darken the affected tones.

Here is a before and after of your photo, and also a copy of the Layers panel and the Whites & Neutrals area of the Selective Color adjustment panel.

Can you tell me how did you just make a selection of the forehead and work on it ?

[smadell]

Hello again, @augustya. With the original photo layer active (selected in the Layers panel) I used the Selection Brush and then the Refine… choice (to manage the selection around the hairline, mostly). In my example, I then used the Duplicate command to create the Forehead layer. This was mostly for the example. In “real life,” I would simply have added a Selective Color adjustment which would limit itself to the selected skin, thanks to the inbuilt mask common to all adjustment layers.

[augustya]

6 hours ago, smadell said:

Hello again, @augustya. With the original photo layer active (selected in the Layers panel) I used the Selection Brush and then the Refine… choice (to manage the selection around the hairline, mostly).

So I have some questions here to begin with. Let’s say  after starting the project, if I have already made a duplicate layer, are you saying when you make a selection of just the forehead you again created a duplicate layer of that? Also when you make a selection don’t you need to add  a mask, apply a mask to it to start working only on the selected area or if you make a selection as in this case, you made a selection and then duplicated the layer and then directly started applying the adjustments to it and it and it was only working on the forehead area is that how it works ?

6 hours ago, smadell said:

In “real life,” I would simply have added a Selective Color adjustment which would limit itself to the selected skin, thanks to the inbuilt mask common to all adjustment layers.

So to use this method you are saying you can add a selective colour adjustment, place it above the main subject layer and directly start making adjustment to the selective layer, or if you want to apply it only to a certain area you will still have to make a selection and leave it there or add a mask to it ?

[smadell]

Good morning, @augustya. Sorry it took so long to respond - I suspect we have a multi-time zone difference! Let me offer a few thoughts after reading your last post. Please note that these are my own feelings, and are certainly not dogma. I have no scientific proof that what I am offering is the best possible advice, but it works for me.

1) A lot of folks routinely make a duplicate of the Background layer immediately upon opening any document. To me, this is wasteful and meaningless. I suspect that the practice goes back to the early days of Photoshop when everything was destructive, and the only way to preserve the original document was to have it on an un-edited original copy. Those days are over. Nowadays, almost everything you can do in Affinity Photo (and in Photoshop) can be done non-destructively. In most cases, duplicating the background layer as a reflex action is unnecessary.

2) You can make a new pixel layer based on a portion of an existing layer by selection a portion of that layer and then (i) choosing "Duplicate Selection" from the Layer menu; or (ii) pressing Command-J (Mac) or Control-J (Windows); or (iii) by doing a Copy and then a Paste. The result will be a new layer containing only the portion of the original Pixel layer that was selected. See the video that follows, in which I will select the model's face using the Selection Brush, then use the Refine… tool to deal with the edges (the hair, especially), and then use Duplicate Selection from the Layer menu to create a new pixel layer.

3) Most of the time, duplicating a pixel layer (or a portion of a pixel layer) is not necessary. I did it earlier in this thread only because it made things easier to visualize. However, when I say that I would not do it that way "in the real world" I mean that I would use a Localized adjustment instead. Rather than making a duplicate of part of a pixel layer, I would make a selection on the original "background" pixel layer and, with the selection active, add an adjustment layer. Doing this will not only put an adjustment layer above the pixel layer, but it also incorporates the selection as a mask within the adjustment itself. You do not have to add a separate mask layer; every adjustment layer already has a built-in mask, and you can use this (i) by painting black or white directly onto the adjustment layer; or (ii) by creating the adjustment layer with an active selection. It is this latter method that I use in the video below.

[augustya]

3 hours ago, smadell said:

Good morning, @augustya. Sorry it took so long to respond - I suspect we have a multi-time zone difference! Let me offer a few thoughts after reading your last post. Please note that these are my own feelings, and are certainly not dogma. I have no scientific proof that what I am offering is the best possible advice, but it works for me.

1) A lot of folks routinely make a duplicate of the Background layer immediately upon opening any document. To me, this is wasteful and meaningless. I suspect that the practice goes back to the early days of Photoshop when everything was destructive, and the only way to preserve the original document was to have it on an un-edited original copy. Those days are over. Nowadays, almost everything you can do in Affinity Photo (and in Photoshop) can be done non-destructively. In most cases, duplicating the background layer as a reflex action is unnecessary.

2) You can make a new pixel layer based on a portion of an existing layer by selection a portion of that layer and then (i) choosing "Duplicate Selection" from the Layer menu; or (ii) pressing Command-J (Mac) or Control-J (Windows); or (iii) by doing a Copy and then a Paste. The result will be a new layer containing only the portion of the original Pixel layer that was selected. See the video that follows, in which I will select the model's face using the Selection Brush, then use the Refine… tool to deal with the edges (the hair, especially), and then use Duplicate Selection from the Layer menu to create a new pixel layer.

3) Most of the time, duplicating a pixel layer (or a portion of a pixel layer) is not necessary. I did it earlier in this thread only because it made things easier to visualize. However, when I say that I would not do it that way "in the real world" I mean that I would use a Localized adjustment instead. Rather than making a duplicate of part of a pixel layer, I would make a selection on the original "background" pixel layer and, with the selection active, add an adjustment layer. Doing this will not only put an adjustment layer above the pixel layer, but it also incorporates the selection as a mask within the adjustment itself. You do not have to add a separate mask layer; every adjustment layer already has a built-in mask, and you can use this (i) by painting black or white directly onto the adjustment layer; or (ii) by creating the adjustment layer with an active selection. It is this latter method that I use in the video below.

That is a Great Explanation and great work to take all the effort and make those videos, that really helped. Thanks for it.

Just one more question lets say if I want to reduce the Hue which is scattered over the face for e.g. Forehead, Nose and Cheeks, and I need to make three different selections, so how do I cut the selection at one place and again continue at other ?

[smadell]

Hello again, @augustya. It seems that we're back to the original issue – getting the "grey" areas out of that portrait-like photo. I'll tell you up front that trying to create multiple masks that seamlessly run into each other is going to be too difficult; you'll always end up with a perceptible border between the masks and you won't like it. There's a better solution, although I'm not sure you're going to like the answer. Bear with me – it's reasonably straightforward.

There's an attached video. In a nutshell, you place an adjustment over the entire image (initially, no mask at all) and make your settings. Then, invert the adjustment layer (which effectively turns the adjustment layer's inbuilt mask to all black). Then, use a white paint brush to paint the mask so that the adjustment is revealed in only the areas you want it to.

Also, in situations like this I've found that painting with a brush set to 1-3% flow makes the "revealing" easier to control. You can paint over and over an area until the degree of revealing is to your liking. (You should read up on the difference between Opacity and Flow as brush settings, since they are subtle but different.)

Since a picture is worth a thousand words, here goes…

 

 

[augustya]

11 hours ago, smadell said:

Hello again, @augustya. It seems that we're back to the original issue – getting the "grey" areas out of that portrait-like photo. I'll tell you up front that trying to create multiple masks that seamlessly run into each other is going to be too difficult; you'll always end up with a perceptible border between the masks and you won't like it. There's a better solution, although I'm not sure you're going to like the answer. Bear with me – it's reasonably straightforward.

There's an attached video. In a nutshell, you place an adjustment over the entire image (initially, no mask at all) and make your settings. Then, invert the adjustment layer (which effectively turns the adjustment layer's inbuilt mask to all black). Then, use a white paint brush to paint the mask so that the adjustment is revealed in only the areas you want it to.

Also, in situations like this I've found that painting with a brush set to 1-3% flow makes the "revealing" easier to control. You can paint over and over an area until the degree of revealing is to your liking. (You should read up on the difference between Opacity and Flow as brush settings, since they are subtle but different.)

Since a picture is worth a thousand words, here goes…

 

 

Ok so you’re saying if I want to apply the adjustment at multiple different places and those are a different spot and locations best way is to invert the adjustment and then paint in white to the areas where you want to apply, that’s what you saying right?

[augustya]

12 hours ago, smadell said:

Also, in situations like this I've found that painting with a brush set to 1-3% flow makes the "revealing" easier to control. You can paint over and over an area until the degree of revealing is to your liking. (You should read up on the difference between Opacity and Flow as brush settings, since they are subtle but different.)

I often get way too confused between how much Hardness to keep and How much Flow to keep and which is more severe ? And in what scenario what needs to be increased or has to be reduced

[iconoclast]

17 minutes ago, augustya said:

I often get way too confused between how much Hardness to keep and How much Flow to keep and which is more severe ? And in what scenario what needs to be increased or has to be reduced

The "Flow" is how much colour the brush releases per second. E.G, if you paint with an analog airbrush or a spray can, and you hold the trigger for a long time, while you don't move the airbrush or spraycan, there will be more and more colour on that spot on your canvas, so it will become more and more opaque.

The "Hardness" means if the brush has a sharp edge or a blurred one. The  hard stroke has the same base area as the soft one, but only his center of the soft one will be 100% black and opaque, while it is blended to full transparency at the edges.

So if you hold a soft brush for a long time or with a high flow on the same spot, even the transparent areas of the brush stroke will be flooded with colour and become more opaque. It's like painting on the same spot again and again. With zero Flow, there will be no colour at all (zero colour per second).

[augustya]

39 minutes ago, iconoclast said:

The "Hardness" means if the brush has a sharp edge or a blurred one. The  hard stroke has the same base area as the soft one, but only his center of the soft one will be 100% black and opaque, while it is blended to full transparency at the edges.

Didn't understand this too well ? Can you give any example ?

 

40 minutes ago, iconoclast said:

So if you hold a soft brush for a long time or with a high flow on the same spot, even the transparent areas of the brush stroke will be flooded with colour and become more opaque. It's like painting on the same spot again and again. With zero Flow, there will be no colour at all (zero colour per second).

So why and when would you use 0% Flow ? I have seen some guys select 0% Flow in some cases. Why would you use and in what scenarios would you use 0% Flow ?

[smadell]

0% flow makes no sense at all to me, since it implies that no paint is flowing from the brush at all. Although you can do this, technically, it doesn't actually paint anything.

The Opacity and Flow settings (for brush strokes) work on a per-stroke basis. Setting opacity to 100% sets the maximum opacity you can attain per stroke. Setting opacity to 10%, for instance, means that each given stroke can only attain 10% opacity. In the latter case, you can move your brush over the same point multiple times, but the point will never get beyond 10% opacity. HOWEVER, if you start a new stroke (e.g., lift the mouse button and then press it down again) that new stroke will be able to attain 10% also. If you paint over the same spot again, you will increase the amount of paint on that spot by another 10%.

Flow is the rate at which the brush lays down paint. Think about it like you were shading with a pencil - put the pencil at an angle and start to stroke an area back and forth until the area gets darker and darker, the more you do it.

Hardness only describes the feathering of the edge of the stroke.

We can explain this in words all day long. The only real way to figure it out is to create a new document with a blank pixel layer. Start with a round brush with Opacity, Flow, and Harness all set to 100%. Lay down a single stroke. Now change the hardness to lower and lower values. See the difference - it's the feathering at the edge.

Put the hardness back to 100% and start decreasing the opacity. See what happens now. And, with opacity, put down multiple strokes that overlap in some areas. See how each stroke is the same opacity, but it gets darker where they overlap.

Do the same for flow. Start at 100% and decrease slowly down to 10, 5, 3, 2, and 1% settings. Again, make multiple strokes that overlay. With a very low flow setting, move the brush back and forth over the same area and see how the intensity of the paint builds up.

Last thing: Put hardness anywhere you like. Set opacity down to 25% and set flow down to 5% (random, small-ish numbers) and start laying down multiple overlapping strokes. Because the flow is low, each stroke is light. As you move each brush stroke back and forth you'll see the paint build up. But (and this is important) each brush stroke can never get darker than whatever you set for opacity. In this case, a single back and forth brush stroke with 25% opacity and 5% flow will build up in darkness until it reaches 25% opacity. Then, you can't get darker. UNLESS, you start a new stroke. This second stroke will work the same way, but if you overlap the second stroke with the first, the overlapped area will be darker than the 25% opacity would otherwise allow.