How can I correctly adjust skin color in Photoshop when I have a color vision deficiency?

Question

I have a color weakness. Is there any tool or tools that I can use by using a formula or setting to correct skin color in Photoshop?

Answer 1

Updated 2024

Still, most image editing software does not have a vectorscope. A vectorscope represents on a Hue-Saturation chart a cloud of dots of the colors of your image. And normally they should have a specific line called the skin tones line. And it is around the orange (between yellow and red). In theory, any human skin tone fits on this line, with changes in saturation and lightness of course.

One Free option is RawTherapee It and works very nice: https://www.rawtherapee.com/

1. Open the vectorscope and define the window sizes.
2. Choose a spot on the skin (no makeup).
3. It will appear on the vectorscope.
4. The objective is to see how far it is from the skin tone line.

5. Play with the colors tab.
6. In this case I saturated the image more with vibrance.
7. And you can see that the spot is still far from the skin tones line.

8. There are several tools to correct it. I used white balance
9. Add green to move the line away from the magenta.
10. It does not need to perfectly fit the line. In this case, I left it with a bit of red tone. (I'll comment later on this)

---

One way to have a vectorscope on any image editing software is using OBS: https://obsproject.com/es/download it is a software used to broadcast your own screen. But in this case, we will only use it to "read" the information on your screen.

10b. (My bad) Open both programs, your Image editing software and OBS and 11. Crop a section of the skin pressing "Alt" and moving the red dots. Make the selection small to clearly define a representative zone of skin. 12. Now open a new source. Choose vectorscope.

13. The skin tone line is the one next to the smudge. Play with the scale and intensity of this window to see the smudge better.

14. Now play with some sliders on your editing software. In this case Gimp with Hue and saturation sliders.

15. This image is really complicated to work with, but you can see the skin patch now is on the line. But in this case, I should leave it on the yellow side instead of the red side.

I tested the lines on RawTherappe and OBS and sometimes it is better to leave it on the red side and other times on the yellow side. I need to make more methodical tests to find a pattern. Probably one tip is to move the colors closer to the skin tone line but not crossing to the other side.

The vectorscope is a 2D representation of hue and saturation, but does not take into account lightness, so it is an imperfect method.

There are some additional tools on these programs like waveforms.

_{Image 1 from JerzyGorecki, pixabay.com}

_{Image 2 from wikimedia}

---

Old Answer

I think I found something interesting. It feels like a revelation to me! (A note on the year 2024 This is an orange proportion, simmilar to the skin tones line, that is why it works)

There are some articles about using the eyedropper but on CMYK model.

I found a very, very simple method that I feel works well to adjust skin colors on RGB model. I am currently testing on Caucasic skins, but I feel it works for almost all skin tones.

• Open your color panel and use RGB sliders.

• Grab your eyedropper and take some measures of the skin.

• The trick is that the 3 sliders need to form (more or less) a straight line. That is it!

Another thing to consider is that this 3 sliders should stay below this 45° angle with respect to the vertical if it is outside this the skin will look too saturated.

Some Initial tests

Here is a photo that has a very clear yellow-green tone:

Taking some random samples the RGB sliders are out of my (currently arbitrary) graph.

Instead of removing the green, I opted to slide up the blue channel, because I noticed the lack of this.

It is not perfect but a big improvement.

One thing I noticed. This relation is more or less stable. The problem with specific measures, instead of proportions is that it is difficult to know what part to measure, highlights, shadows, etc.

With this method, you can measure with some freedom. It only will move your sliders left and right, will make it more or less vertical (depending on the style of the photo, saturated or not very much saturation)

Also, this gives me the freedom to choose which channel to adjust. The obvious choice in the example was to reduce the green, but It is not that important and moving the blue worked.

You can now reduce the brightness, saturation, or other adjustments. The proportion of the 3 channels is what is important.

I think this is a good starting point.

Answer 2

My comments are becoming short answers, so I'll start an answer already. Originally I figured without the specific numbers but only a citation it was a comment.

Anyway, it is no accident that the axis of CIE LAB color spaces match the way our eyes perceive (oppenent perceptual space). I foind this treatise to be fascinating and very detailed, concerning how we "see". And "see" as in perceive because our raw sensors are essentially RGB but it gets converted to LAB for later perceiving workmin the brain. IIRC, yellow-blue channel is most primitive and allows us to adjust white balance for sun/shade/midday/morning etc. Skimming through the section, I don't see what I thout I remember about red/green as a useful second axis.

But my idea is: go to LAB and, if it is the red-green axis your eyes lack, select that channel to be visible only, as grey. Or, swap the A and B and match the false color mapping against other photos and learn over time what the right colors are there. (Then swap back) that's assuming that the skin tint to fix is quite close to the red/green axis, and the blue color cast is perceived seperately, especially in how we have come to learn how photos reveal a blue or orange tint of the lighting. A blue error in the face won't be seen as bad skin tone but in cool lighting condition. And the proper color to hit happens to be red, which is the opponent axis.

Adjust the A and B channels separately by using numbers, greyscale view of the channel alone, or false color in the colors you are most descriminating in. For skin tone in particular, if the AB axes are not sufficient, tools can be used to transform the color to put one axis exactly along the direction of needed fiddling.

I hope you get the gist of what I'm thinking.

(P.s. I've wondered from time to time what colors my parrot sees, as primates are color blind from his perspective)

Answer 3

If you want the color correct, I think the only answer is a color checker. You will find a wide variety of these small targets that contain a set of different color squares. You put the target in the scene or have somebody hold it and take one photo. You then take other photo's without the checker.

When processing your images, you correct the image that contains the color checker and apply those corrections to all the others. Several color checker kits contain tools specifically for workflows such as Photoshop or Lightroom.

The issue of correct color or skin tone issue doesn't relate to your color deficiency. I don't think many people (anyone?) have perfect color memory that would allow them to accurately reproduce the color of a scene. (Is the dress blue and black or white and gold?) That is why there is a market for these checkers. In theory you could be completely color blind and reproduce correct color using a checker.

I keep highlighting correct because you mentioned skin tones. Accurate may be true, but not always what people want to see in a picture. You may actually want appealing skin tones. If that is the case, you likely need the help of your subject or an assistant and a set of color chips (for example a Pantone skin tone set). Your subject or assistant would have to tell you "this picture should be number 123-3" They in post processing you could match the image to the color number.

see sample of people matched to Pantone color numbers