Skin tones homogeneity

Software darktable
#1

Hey everyone,
I have finally switched from Capture One to darktable and after a few weeks of much trial and error and hours of reading I think I finally got the hang of it. And oh boy do I enjoy darktable!

There is only one functionality that I am really missing, and that is this skin tones tool demonstrated in this video at 5:00:
https://learn.captureone.com/blog-posts/achieving-perfect-skin-tones-using-capture-one/

I have found this tool to be super efficient at quickly improving skin tones, mainly through adjustment of tone homogeinity.

Is there anything similar in darktable? I don’t seem to find it.

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Skin tone pitfall
#3

This can be achieved with the help of “fill” tool in retouch module.

First, select the number of scales until by the last scale (white square) the roughest details of the face are no longer visible:

retouch1

Then select fill as the tool and instead of erase select the color option. In the blending options of the module select RGB (scene) color space and as blend mode select chromaticity. This will only affect the color and not the brightness:

retouch2

With the color picker select a color in the skin that best matches the color of the skin. . Then use the drawn masks ( preferably path ) to mask the skin. You can then regulate the opacity of each mask:

retouch3

before:

retouch4

after:

retouch5

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#4

Wow. @s7habo, you’re really the master of dt, chapeau !

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#5

Otherwise, simply use a “surface blur” module, blend it in chromaticity and use a drawn mask over the area to homogenize, then tweak the radius and per-channel intensity.

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#6

For the thread AP demonstrated his comments here in his latest video on skin retouching…https://youtu.be/Kqfo3h4Dbe8

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#7

wow, this is an incredibly simple and effective approach to it. thanks for sharing it!

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#8

Great, exactly what I asked for in another thread!

This thread has been timely. Recently I considered one of the many differences between paintings and photos being that painters have a smaller palette, thus less variation of hues. To mimic this, how to reduce the number of hues in a photograph? @s7habo response works excellently, not just on skin tones either. However, I notice when you click on ‘custom’ it only gives colours in hex values. I have sRGB values of paints I’d like to try. Do I simply convert the sRGB to hex value to get the same, or is it different because the retouch module default positioning is before input profile, or if moved (eg. after color calibration) it is now in working profile - which is not sRGB?

#9

It may be better if you present an example. Walk us through your thinking and show the result and then we could try to breakdown it down to correct anything that might not be as you thought…the pickers in a module are going to grab or report input to the modules and the color picker is going to give you the pipeline processed value at any point in the workflow as set by the histogram profile so what you are reading and when and what you are trying to change exactly might be impacted by readings and how and when you take them.

#10

Thank you for your elaborate response. I gave it a try and it works well. Thank you!

1 Like