Processesing idiot!

[dtscds]

Okay, as I stated in another thread, I cannot seem to get the skin right.
Here is before and after.
The process:
Levels--brought the sliders in a bit and adjusted the midtones until it look nice and bright (a la thatsmymonkey.com)
Curves--very slight "S" curve
Saturation--10 or so
Skin--Belle's "Porcelain Skin" procedure (I know the "painting" work isn't perfect)
Sharpen--Smart Sharpen: 75% / 1.0 / Lens Blur / More accurate checked
Where am I going wrong? Where is the sunburn look coming from? It looks over-processed but not in a good way!

[DigitalDiva]

When I have issues with skin tone I usually correct it in selective colors,
some people have more red skin tone the others if you correct with the cyan then adjust the natural most skin tones even out.

[RaymondShay]

dtscds,

I don't know the exact look your searching for, but below is one option maybe.

I did not enhance contrast whatsoever. When I used levels, I then used EDIT > Fade and change the blending mode to luminosity. That reduces the harshness, I think anyway.

The skin is just neat image, and I avoid the eyes and hair. I guess I blur the skin and sharpen the hair...

There was a little tungsten color shift that I thought I saw as well.

It's just my observation, but the most common mistake (by far) is over doing it. Blending the original image back in to the final might help sometimes.

Sometimes we need to choose between flattering and accurate, it just depends on our goals I guess.

Anyway, one option....



{EDTT:} Really nice lens by the way, I like the crispness.

[ssherman]

Try making a hue/saturation layer and decreasing the red or magenta saturation

[The Philos]

I tried as well:
Noiseware
Curves:
Slight S Curve
Went to the Red Color, I: 124 O: 114
USM: 84,1,1
Slight Gaussian Blur on another layer set to 49% opacity
USM Eyes on separate layer.

[ssherman]

I never sharpen skin. I clone the background layer, apply desired sharpening, fill the mask with black and then brush in the areas I want sharper with a white brush @ 50% or so.

Another way. Duplicate the image, convert to LAB and use unsharp mask on the Luminance channel only and then re-converting to RGB. Then drag the layer to your origanl image, set blending mode to luminosity. That just sharpens the luminace (brights) and has no effect on the color channels.

[barP]

raymond, that looks great! reality is she has a lot of red blush in her skin. i guess good lighting would fix that (i'm lighting ignorant, among other things), but the single best way to fix her skin tone?

black and white.



wp.