Nontraditional, Offbeat and Alternative Wedding Photographers

We’ve all had it happen - unfortunate blushing during a photo. Maybe it was because of a hot day or an embarrassing moment; maybe it’s blemishes or maybe it’s just the way light hit you. Here’s a way to decrease that redness in a very controlled way. This is a photo from my wedding - I was hugging my maid of honor, who had already developed sunburn from our outdoor picnic reception:

Rough! But this is a great way to demonstrate how to retouch red skin. First, click on your color palette. You want to choose a green that’s light - this will both lighten the skin and neutralize the redness. Green is the complimentary color to red, which means this will neutralize and decrease the red.

Next, you want to select your brush. The most important parts of this are choosing a very low opacity (after all, we don’t want to paint a noticeable green blotch on her!). I usually start with 6% and if I feel that’s too much or too little, I erase what I’ve done and change the opacity to start again. The other important part is to choose 0% hardness or something very low - this way there’s no clear edges to where you’ve painted with your brush. It’ll blend a lot better. The size of the brush is up to you; you can use trial and error to figure out what works best for your picture.

I then brush over the red area. Try to use as few strokes as possible to avoid going over the same area too much (which will result in more green than you want). For even more control, add the paint to a new layer instead of directly on the background.

Here’s our before and after:

Remember, less is more. You can always use your History to go back and try again. If you don’t like the look you’re getting, try a different shade of green, or change the opacity of the brush or its hardness. Stay tuned for more Photoshop tips for the rest of the week!