Modifying skin tones only a little bit

[Soupy (Tim)]

@linuxuser

I had a photo with people on a frozen lake. Everything is fine (more or less), but the skin of the face is too dark. What could be used to make the skin tones lighter, but keep the other colors as exposed?

Try increasing the brightness slider on either red or green channel in color calibration. Or, the brightness slider on yellow or orange in colour equaliser.

[Thad_E_Ginathom]

@paperdigits

darktable user manual - darktable’s color dimensions

Oh yes! I do remember having seen that page. Thank you for the reminder

[Thad_E_Ginathom]

@Soupy

the brightness slider on yellow or orange in colour equaliser

The colour picker is useful. Having chosen the colour(s) you want to adjust, move the slider(s) and, as well as the face, see what else in the picture is affected. It’s usually more than I want. This is what I usually do next…

If the wanted and unwanted effects are in clear blobs (click Display Blend Mask symbol) then just do quick drawn shape around the face.

If not, I’d do parametric. Start with Hz: select an area of skin around where you placed your colour picker for the graph. You might say you already picked a colour, why do what seems to be the same again in masking? Honestly, I don’t know! I can only say that it often works for me!

(I’m usually using colour equaliser to pull back something very bright, eg a brilliant-colour silk dress. But no reason not to do the opposite too.)