In this lesson, you’ll apply your skills with adjustment layers, Levels, and Curves to real-world portrait editing. The focus is on two common challenges in photography:
Correcting Overall Skin Tone – using Color Balance adjustment layers to remove unwanted color casts and bring portraits closer to natural, healthy tones.
Fixing Localized Redness – using Hue/Saturation adjustment layers to reduce redness in specific areas (like cheeks or nose) while keeping the rest of the skin looking natural.
How to use Color Balance to fix overall hue problems in portraits.
How to target specific colors (like reds) and reduce them with precision using Hue/Saturation.
How to combine these tools for professional-level results.
Watch and follow along with both tutorials.
Practice on the provided portrait images, or bring in your own if you’d like an extra challenge.
Save your work in PSD (so you can show your layers and masks) and JPG (for the final before/after).
At the end of this lesson, you should feel comfortable cleaning up skin tones in any portrait—and you’ll have solid examples to add to your final collage poster for this unit.
Purpose: Fix unwanted color casts in portraits to achieve natural-looking skin tones.
Key Steps:
Apply a Colour Balance adjustment layer.
Focus corrections on Highlights, then adjust Midtones and Shadows as needed. Use subtle slider shifts for balance—not dramatic changes.
Toggle visibility using the eye icon to compare before/after effects.
If you’re also working on exposure or contrast, consider adding a Levels adjustment layer first to get the lighting right.
Why It Matters: Mastering Colour Balance allows you to correct complex lighting conditions and ensure skin tones remain healthy and realistic—critical for portrait editing.
Purpose: Reduce unwanted redness—common around the cheeks, nose, or eyes—without affecting natural skin tones.
Key Steps:
Create a Hue/Saturation adjustment layer.
Set the drop-down to Reds and use the eyedropper to select the red area you want to tone down.
Adjust Hue, Saturation, and Lightness to neutralize redness—Hue shifts can cancel red by shifting toward cyan.
Invert the layer mask (Ctrl/Cmd + I) and paint in white over only the areas needing correction for precise control. Use a soft brush and low flow for smooth transitions.
For stubborn blemishes, finish with the Spot Healing Brush for seamless touch-ups.
Why It Matters: This technique allows you to selectively reduce redness—improving skin quality while preserving natural tones.
Start with Color Balance if your image has an overall cast or tint—fixing hue before detailed tonal edits helps maintain consistency.
Then apply Redness removal to target localized imperfections, ensuring smooth, natural results.