Pinning Flesh Tones

The first image is straight from the camera. It is acceptable, but the skin tones are almost over the edge, almost magenta. Normally we would use a neutral reference to get rid of the color cast, but this image has no obvious neutrals.In cases like this, pinning to a flesh tone is the next best thing to a neutral. The second image is the result after pinning to a flesh tone.

If you are just starting out with Curvemeister, check out one of the earlier examples to see how to start the Curvemeister plugin from within Photoshop.

For starters let's do an informal survey, using the hue clock. The results are shown in Figure 1.

I happen to know, as you may also, that "skin tones are out to lunch". Generally late lunch hour, meaning that the hue clock should resemble an hour hand that points between between 12:30 and 1 o'clock, or thereabouts.

Our survey shows that everything, with the possible exception of the upper right sample is on the verge of being too red - more like a quarter past than half past.

We could just bump the red curve in RGB down a bit, but since this is a tutorial on pinning, let's try that technique.

Figure 1. A survey of various skin tones in the image.
This illustration uses several hue clocks.
The more usual procedure, is to
drag a single sample around.

For our pin we'll select Curvemeister's "Skin 1" pin, and drag it from the pin palette onto the image.

After placing the pin, move it around a bit until the overall look is about right. In particular, place the pin in a medium toned area, and avoid placing the pin on the very darkest or lightest areas, because these tend to have a higher and lower saturation, respectively.

Figures 2a, before pinning and 2b, after pinning.
I chose the Lab version of the pin, but RGB and RGBK
work well just as often, if not more often, than Lab.

That's it. It's important that you experiment on your own images and create your own pins. Try the hue clock on your own flesh tones and get an ideal of where your favorite skin tones are. Remember too, that you can adjust the Hue clock directly, using - what else? - curves!

Note: Since HSB is dependent on the ratios of red, green, and blue values of a color, the hue clock's exact position can depend on your working color space. Because of this, you may prefer to set your Preview Options so that your hue clock uses Lab mode for its calculations. Lab mode results in a more stable hue clock that does not vary with brightness as much as HSB, and does not have a bias toward red, green, and blue. Personally, I prefer HSB because I like the way pure red, green, and blue are always spot on , but you have a choice.

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