Tan Skin Tone

October 30th, 2006 Filed in: Tricks & Tips Jump to comments

Someone emailed me and asked how to make the golden/tan skin tone as seen in many movie posters and magazine advertisements. Believe it or not, the effect can be achieved by just couple mouse clicks. Here is a quick Photoshop tutorial to show you how to make a tan skin tone effect and apply makeups on the model. Let’s take a look at the image below, the left image is original photo and the right is final image.

Before & After

compare image

1. Overlay Layer

Open the original document that you want to apply the effect. Go to Layer > Duplicate Layer (or press Cmd + J) to duplicate the original layer. Set the duplicated layer Blending mode to Overlay. Then adjust the Opacity to 70%. The Opacity may be vary, depend on the brightness and color of your original photo source.

step 1

2. Highlight Spots

Select the original layer. Choose the Brush tool, set brush Size = 200px, Mode = Color Dodge and Opacity = 10%. Use the Eyedropper tool to pick a sample skin color from the image (Option+Click on the image). Gently brush on the areas that you want to be shine.

step 2

3. Eyeshadow

Make a selection around the eyelid, go to Selection > Feather (Cmd+Option+D) to feather the selection by 5px. Make a new layer and fill the selection with a light pink color. Then set the blending mode to Hue.

step 3

Make another selection slightly smaller than the pink layer. Again, feather it by 5px. Fill it with a blue purple color and set the blending mode to Darken.

step 3b

4. Eyeliner

Make a selection of the eyeliner. Feather it by 3px. Make a new layer. Use the Gradient tool (pick a green color, select Foreground to Transparent), then drag from the lower corner to the upper corner of the selection. Adjust the blending mode to Multiply.

step 4