Quick Skin Tone Retouching in Photoshop

Here is a quick Photoshop retouching tip that came up this month with a Seattle design studio. While working on a piece for a local non-profit, one digital photo was suffering from color problems in the skin tone highlights.

This particular image turned out to be a great example of a common photo retouching technique. Simply create a new layer and cover up the problem area with a patch of your desired skin tone. Then set that new layer to a blending mode of “Color” and volia, the skin tone is corrected.

Step 1: Select the Problem Skin Tone.

Using Photoshop’s selection tools, we outlined the problem areas in the skin tone highlights. Feather the selection slightly to help blend the edges.

Step 2: Pick a Good Target Skin Color.

Using Photoshop’s Eyedropper, select an example of skin color nearby in the same photo.

Step 3: Create a new Photoshop Layer and fill with your skin color.

Create a new layer in the Photoshop layer palette. Fill your selected area with the target skin tone color.

Step 4: Set the Layer Blending Mode to “Color”.

Step 5: Adjust the Layer Opacity (if needed).

Skin Tone Before and After.