Cutting off instead of compressing/expending color data

[Barayase]

Attached pic is skin with peach fuzz, there is quite a bit of it over the face. Selection is difficult as its not that different in tone. 

Wondering if there is a way (without doing selections) to clamp (bring down) the the brightest pixels in that area, to somewhat match the skin value, seems simple but i can't figure this one out without darkening the whole thing.

 

Thanks

Mariusz

[stokerg]

Hi Barayase,

A couple of ways i can think to do this.  If you sample the colour of the skin and then select a soft brush and change the hardness to 0% and lower the flow and opacity, you can then brush over the image and it will start to soften the hairs.  It might take a few goes to get the brush settings correct.

Another way, would be to sample the colour of the hair and using Select>Sample Colour which will then select the hair, you can then look at applying a Shadows and Highlights adjustment and drop the highlights down. 

I'm sure if anyone else has any tips, they will post them here  

[toltec]

Not sure what you mean by "Selection is difficult as its not that different in tone". You would need to select the skin areas or it would apply anything you do to the whole image, so you will lose detail.

I would select the problem skin areas, then use a Live Filter Layer with Luminance Denoise

Note the settings, including Extreme and the Darken Blend Mode to keep more skin colour detail.

I did a fairly gentle amount of 167% to reduce, rather than eliminate but you can do more if you want.

Original

 

[Barayase]

Thank you both

Luminance denoise works quite well close to what i had in mind and gets almost there. Tried Dust and scratches also with darken mode to similar effect, both work well enough when zoomed out and quite usable. Some paint over may be unavoidable.

What i meant the difference in tone between the skin and hair is very small for selections, its either too little or too much. unless you are doing small regions, the face goes into shadow and shifts in luminance so selections would be local, small, and take forever as this is for a single 3d character im trying to find the fastest route to the finish with this part of the process.

Mariusz