Retouching

Skin Tone Correction in Photoshop

Jan Wischermann makes colour patches in skin visible with the EyeHelp and evens them out in Photoshop.

Beauty portrait of a young woman with short, tousled dark hair and light eyes, her face half in shadow, wearing a black ribbed zip-neck top against a grey background
The skin
Why colour

The patches you can't see in colour

Small patches of yellow and red in the skin are hard to see in a colour image, and easy to overcorrect once you do see them. The EyeHelp shows them clearly, so you fix only what is there.

Dodge and burn evens out light and shadow. Skin tone correction evens out colour: a slightly yellow patch on the cheek, a red patch around the nose or eyes. Both matter, but they are different jobs with different tools. Some variation in skin is natural and should stay, and the make-up artist's colour stays too. What you remove are the patches that pull the eye, especially in close-ups and in a long series of images that has to look consistent.

  • The viewEyeHelp, a temporary layer group above the image
  • The fixOne painted layer in Hue mode
  • TextureUntouched, only hue changes
  • OrderAfter clean-up and dodge & burn
  • Exact settingsThe EyeHelp action · inside the Lab
One beauty portrait split down the nose: the left half in colour, the right half through the EyeHelp, where the skin turns blue and small colour shifts show up as darker patches
Left in colour · Right through the EyeHelpThe same face, before any correction
The workflow
Correct it in steps

Correct skin tone in three steps

The way Jan showed it in our live session From RAW to Campaign.

The portrait through the EyeHelp view, the skin in blue with darker patches where the colour shiftsThe EyeHelp view after the correction, the patch under the eye now closer to the blue of the surrounding skinThe portrait in colour after the skin tone correction, even skin with its natural variation kept
Step 1 · See it
Compare
In colour and through the EyeHelp

What the EyeHelp sees

Close-up of the eye and cheek in colour, before the correction
BeforeIn colour
The same close-up in colour, after the correction
AfterIn colour
The same close-up through the EyeHelp before the correction, colour shifts showing as darker patches in the blue skin
EyeHelp · beforeThe patches show up
The same close-up through the EyeHelp after the correction, the patch under the eye evened out
EyeHelp · afterEvened out

In colour the change is small. Through the EyeHelp you see exactly where it happened.

Compare
Which tool when

Three tools for skin

Three tools that change skin, and what each one is for.

Close-up of the eye and cheek through the EyeHelp view, colour shifts visible as darker patches

EyeHelp & hue layer

Used here

Finds and fixes small colour shifts in the skin, one patch at a time. Texture and brightness stay untouched.

Changes
Hue only
Speed
Fast once you see the patches
Best for
Close-ups, beauty, keeping a series consistent
Detail of dodge and burn masks around the eyes and nose of another portrait, brightened for visibility

Dodge & burn

Evens out light and shadow on the skin with curves on masks. It does not fix colour; curves can even shift it. Our dodge and burn breakdown shows how.

Changes
Light and shadow
Speed
Slow, many passes
Best for
Smooth transitions, shaping a face
Close-up of the eye and cheek in colour after the correction

Skin tone tool in Capture One

Evens out the skin colour of the whole image or a masked area in the raw converter. Great for the overall direction, less precise for single patches. See skin tones in Capture One.

Changes
Hue, saturation and brightness of skin colours
Speed
Fast
Best for
The overall skin colour before Photoshop
From the retouch
Four things that matter
  1. 01

    Keep what belongs to the face

    Freckles, blush and the make-up artist's colour stay. Correct only the patches that pull the eye.

  2. 02

    Sample right next to the patch

    Skin colour changes across the face. A sample from the forehead will look wrong on the cheek.

  3. 03

    Use Hue mode

    Hue mode changes only the tone. Color mode also changes saturation and can make skin look grey.

  4. 04

    Correct less than the EyeHelp suggests

    The view exaggerates on purpose. Switch it off often and judge in colour.

Inside the Lab
The retouch

The rest is inside the Lab

Members get Jan's full retouching courses, the EyeHelp as a one-click action in the Toolkit, and the complete recordings of our live sessions.

  • Jan's retouching courses, from basic skin to a full beauty retouchLab
  • The EyeHelp and skin tone actions in the ToolkitLab
  • The full live session From RAW to CampaignLab
  • Jan's Help Layers and Dodge & Burn KitLab
  • Live sessions with Per and JanLab
Preview of the EyeHelp view from Jan's skin tone lesson inside the Lab, partly blurred
Retouching · Skin tone
See the plans
Questions
Skin tone correction
How do you correct skin tone in Photoshop?

Make the colour shifts visible first, for example with a help view like the EyeHelp. Then paint the correct skin colour over the patches on an empty layer in Hue mode, at low strength, and check the result in colour.

What is the EyeHelp?

A temporary help view built from a colour fill in Saturation mode and an inverted curve. It turns the skin into one even tone, so small yellow or red patches stand out. It is switched off before the image is saved.

Why Hue mode and not Color mode?

Hue changes only the colour tone. Color mode also changes saturation, which can make corrected skin look grey or blotchy.

Should skin tone be corrected in Capture One or in Photoshop?

Both. Set the overall skin colour in Capture One, then fix single patches in Photoshop. Our skin tones in Capture One breakdown shows the first part.

The Curated Lab

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Photo Per AppelgrenRetouching Jan WischermannModel DariaMake-up Eva HerbohnHair Theo SchnuererStyling Marcella VerweyenLight operator Liam Mulligan
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