Color Correction

[Lynnya]

Here is where I'm at with this sweet image.. all suggestions welcome..

   

[Candice]

Love the dimples!! 

[Jo Ann Snover]

That's a great school portrait - lovely (slightly mischievous) smile.

I think she's a bit blue and a bit flat in your WIP. I really like how you handled the hair whisps (i.e. they're all there as in the original, but minus the damage).

I made a slightly different color and contrast using the original and then put some bits side by side by way of explanation. See if this makes sense



I circled the gray eye dropper on the Curves Adjustment layer "Color" as that's how I nixed the yellow cast. I used the shadows on the white shirt (and tried several until I got skin tones that I liked)

That left me with some blue-ish tones in the white shirt - not as blue as yours, but still had blue in the shadows. I decided to use a masked B&W adjustment layer (using gray, not white, to paint on the mask as things look really out of whack if you take all the color out) on the shirt to neutralize it. It's possible I could have avoided this extra step by fiddling with the curves, but I couldn't see any point.

After I adjusted the curves (by hand) in "Contrast", her skin highlights and the shirt were a little too bright, so I used the Curves Adjustment layer set to Multiply blend mode to  bring those down a bit.

The enlarged tie (200%) was just to point out the difference in the two versions on the tie - that it seemed some details were lost in the WIP. I think because of the color and contrast adjustments you made, not because of the cleanup.

Hope this helps

[Lynnya]

Thanks for taking the time Jo Ann... how's this coming..

[Shadow]

Hey Girl, coming along. Maybe even out the color of her shirt and in the lower left corner there's still a bit of damage right above the frame. Gonna' be good!

[kiska]

Maybe add a little yellow and reduce the cyan?

[Jo Ann Snover]

Shirt shadows have lost their blue-ish color but the rest of her (skin particularly) still looks on the cold (blue) side to me. It's a small thing - i.e. I don't think your colors are way off - but if you look at the values from a color sample high on her cheek (right of the photo, above the highlight) and compare with the guidelines you see here, I think the yellow is too low

I compared my version to your latest WIP - you can have the color sampler tool display in CMYK without converting the image - your percentages are 31 C/59 M/ 53 Y / 8 K; my version is 31 C/51 M/80 M/11 K. The original is 29 C/ 46 M/ 76 Y/ 7K

Your cyan is over 1/2 of your yellow which is at the very high end of the range; mine is just over 1/3. My magenta might be a little low looking at the numbers.

[Lynnya]

Thanks Kiska and Jo Ann... Am I close??

[Mhayes]

She is beautiful!  :up:

[Lynnya]

Thanks Margie...

[Shadow]

 :up: :up:

[Candice]

 :up:  :hug:  I second that!  Lovely