I see this lament on forums quite a bit. "How can I fix this photo? The skintones look too orange."
Well, the thing is, skintones ARE orange. That is to say, they exist on the colour wheel between the primary colours of Red and Yellow. And what colour is between Red and Yellow? Orange.
Admittedly, the usual skintone is much closer to Red than Yellow, but there's a yellow component to it, nonetheless.
So, if a skintone looks so strongly orange it's offensive, the solution may not be to change the colour. Very often it's simply an issue of over-saturation.
Ok, great. Can we just desaturate it, then?
Alas, no. Desaturation often does terrible things to skin, and I've never had much success with it. As with many things in Photoshop, there's no such thing as a "return trip". Very often, if you saturate something by 20%, then desaturate it by 20%, you don't end up where you started.
So, I'm afraid you have to re-trace your steps, and find the adjustment you made to over-saturate in the first place. The solution lies in not making the mistake in the first place - prevention is better than cure, as they say.
Needless to say, an Adjustment Layer-based workflow is essential to be able to re-trace your steps and fix earlier problems.
Comments or Questions?
