Frequency separation on skin

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Posts: 16
Joined: Wed Feb 10, 2016 1:22 pm

Frequency separation on skin

Postby prettywoman » Sat Apr 30, 2016 8:02 pm

Hi de hi

How do i use the 'Frequency separation' tool on skin.

Many thanks

Posts: 782
Joined: Sat May 31, 2014 9:56 pm

Re: Frequency separation on skin

Postby eadams » Sun May 01, 2016 11:12 am

Load your image
Click on the Select Area tool on the right
Click on "Skin" in the dialogue box
A message will appear telling you that the wizard has 2 steps. Click OK
Use the mouse to select the skin area with the Selecting Skin brush. If you go over the line switch to "Erase from Selection" mode
When the skin is selected, click on the "Confirm Selection and Browse Effects" button on the left
The effects gallery will open. In the search box, enter "Frequency Separation" and hit the return key on the keyboard
You will find the effect and it will be shown on your screen. Click on the screen next to the image to confirm that you want to use that effect.
The effect controls will appear on the left. You can tweak them or leave them as is. Click OK
You have applied the effect to the skin.

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Joined: Wed Feb 10, 2016 1:22 pm

Re: Frequency separation on skin

Postby prettywoman » Sun May 01, 2016 4:23 pm

Hi eadams

Thank you for getting back to me.

This is where I am up to, I am trying to even the tone of the skin of a wrist next to a face, at present the persons wrist looks like an old lamb chop next to the face. Please see the attachment. I followed you instructions to the 'T' but the frequency separation didn't seem to do a lot, when I moved the master control up and down nothing really changed. See attachment 1 - nigella_test1

I am trying to get an even tone and luminosity (if that's spelt correctly) to the skin like that in attachment 116.jpg

I do have portrait pro but wanted to show the raw file before anything was done to the nigella pic so you can see the vast difference in colour of wrist to face.

Hope you can help on this.

Many thanks
Attachments
nigella_test1a.jpg
nigella_test1a.jpg (75.76 KiB) Viewed 9037 times
116.jpg
116.jpg (76.88 KiB) Viewed 9037 times

Posts: 782
Joined: Sat May 31, 2014 9:56 pm

Re: Frequency separation on skin

Postby eadams » Sun May 01, 2016 5:38 pm

Hi prettywoman,

I can see what a challenge you are facing. The hand and wrist are not only a different color from the face, but also has different textures on it. I tried lightening the hand area and putting a little blur on it, but it didn't look perfect. I don't have the skill to do a professional looking job on it. In Photoshop I would probably brighten that area, then select the color of the face and paint over the hand on a new layer, changing the blending mode to color, then merge the layers. I would also probably try cloning some of the texture of the wrist onto the ball of the hand (with low opacity) to try to minimize the texture difference. But as I said, I am not that proficient at re-touching this type of photo. This image would look great using some kind of outlining/painterly effect that removes the hand altogether, but I understand that you want a realistic photo in the style of the other example you posted. Good luck!

Posts: 16
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Re: Frequency separation on skin

Postby prettywoman » Sun May 01, 2016 5:52 pm

Lol I think I need more than luck

Site Admin
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Joined: Thu Feb 25, 2010 7:11 pm

Re: Frequency separation on skin

Postby admin » Tue May 03, 2016 10:44 am

Hi,

While SPE can do some stuff on skin, if you want a lot of control, especially for improving faces, I'd recommend our sister product: PortraitPro. You can download a free trial on the website and see all the things it can do.

Kind regards

Tony

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Joined: Wed Feb 10, 2016 1:22 pm

Re: Frequency separation on skin

Postby prettywoman » Tue May 03, 2016 6:34 pm

Hi Tony

I already have Portrait pro but not sure how to match face colour to rest of the body colour, as in the wrist in the above photograph. Is there a video within Portrait pro that shows me how to do this?

Many thanks

Site Admin
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Joined: Thu Feb 25, 2010 7:11 pm

Re: Frequency separation on skin

Postby admin » Wed May 04, 2016 10:01 am

The easiest way to just match a color is to adjust it by hand in SPE:

Click on Area Treatment
Select the hand.
Increase the temperature (which will make it less blue). I found 0.336 worked ok.
Increase the tint a little (try 0.025)
Increase the exposure (try 0.462)
I also used the airbrush with a low opacity and large radius to remove some of the selection of the hand nearest the face as it was looking too red after that.

You can play around with the sliders until the wrist matches the face. That's something that you can't really do in PP.

For anything else, PP is your best bet. Frequency separation is a simple technique for smoothing skin, but PP has a more advanced system you can access with the Skin Smoothing sliders. When you are happy that the wrist matches the rest of the picture, the best tools for recolouring skin are in the Skin Coloring Controls. You can choose a skin colour in the first drop down in that section (try starting with Color Correct, which is a general color improver), then play with the slider. Fine tweaks to the color can be made in the rest of the section.

Kind regards

Tony

Posts: 16
Joined: Wed Feb 10, 2016 1:22 pm

Re: Frequency separation on skin

Postby prettywoman » Thu May 05, 2016 7:39 pm

Hi Tony

Thank you so much

This bit worked

Click on Area Treatment
Select the hand.
Increase the temperature (which will make it less blue). I found 0.336 worked ok.
Increase the tint a little (try 0.025)
Increase the exposure (try 0.462)


But I really couldn't see much difference the the airbrush part, what is it supposed to do?

Please have patience with me here, I really want to work but it make take some time lol :roll:

Site Admin
Posts: 2477
Joined: Thu Feb 25, 2010 7:11 pm

Re: Frequency separation on skin

Postby admin » Fri May 06, 2016 10:24 am

The airbrush is just a way to select or deselect soft areas. I only mentioned it because some of the hand looked too red to me, but it's not critical.

Select the airbrush tool
Turn down the opacity to say 20%
Make the radius large say around 50-70%
Use it to remove the effect from the overly red parts of the hand.

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