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Hi! My name is Rita and I am the blogger behind CoffeeShop and a stay-at-home, home-schooling Mom to two naughty but adorable little boys (Duke is 7 and Imp is 5), wife to my high school sweetheart, and passionate about all things photography.

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CoffeeShop Skin Redness Relief Action and UnWrapped Tutorial!

>> Sunday, August 15, 2010


Here is my newest free retouching action, CoffeeShop Redness Relief.  This is a very simple action
 that will allow you to remove unwanted reddish tints from skintones.  It is completely customizable and runs in both PSE and Photoshop.  This will also be in the new version of Perfect Portrait.  :-) You can find the download links at the bottom of this post.

CoffeeShop Redness Relief Action Instructions:

To use the action, open your portrait.  Then run Redness Relief.



Click to select the black layer mask and use a white low opacity brush (50% or so) on normal mode and paint over red skin. 

1.  Make sure your foreground color is white.
2.  Select a soft brush.
3.  Make sure your brush Mode is set to Normal.
4.  Adjust opacity to taste.  I usually start with 50%.


There is a great way to make sure you are removing all of the red from the skin.  Simply Shift-Alt-left click on your black layer mask and your entire image will look red.  Wherever you paint on the skin with your white brush it will remove the red "mask", and in this case be removing the red tint from the skin.  To read more about layer masks, please go read this post.

In the image below I haven't painted on the skin yet.  Imp looks a bit devilish!


Start painting on the image with the soft white brush. Wherever you paint, the red mask on your image will be removed and you will be actually removing redness from the skin!  You can see I did a pretty good job selecting the skin.  Well, I did miss some, but I wanted to keep it real.  Hee hee! 

Now Imp looks like Raggedy Andy.  I wonder if he is going to get me back when he gets older...  ;-)


Shift-Alt-left click on the black layer mask again and the red mask will be gone and you can see that the skin is not red anymore!  Adjust the Redness Relief layer's opacity to taste.


Here is another example.


CoffeeShop Redness Relief Action UnWrapped Tutorial!

This tutorial will only work in Photoshop, not Photoshop Elements, because it uses the Channel Mixer.  I can write an action with Channel Mixer that will run in PSE, but PSE users can't use this method unless they run the action.

1.  Open your image.

2.  Add a Channel Mixer adjustment layer.  Put in these settings:
Output Setting:  Red, Red = 100%
Output Setting:  Green, Red = 30%, Green = 70%
Output Setting:  Blue, Red = 30%, Green = 3%, Blue = 67%

3.  Make your layer mask black and paint over the skin with a low opacity white brush.  Adjust brush and layer opacity to taste.

Download the free CoffeeShop Redness Relief Action HERE or HERE!

Want all of my favorite CoffeeShop Actions or Design Elements in one simple download AND help support this blog? Just click here for my action pack or here for a download of some of my most popular design elements, storyboards, and textures. For complete info on installing all of my actions, click here.

14 Thoughtful Comments:

Amy August 15, 2010 4:44 PM  

you're amazing....thanks Rita!!!!

DebC August 15, 2010 8:01 PM  

Besides getting free actions,
I LEARN so much from your
tutorials and
LEARN again when I run the
actions and just play.
Thank you so much (again).

Emily August 15, 2010 8:44 PM  

Thank you for sharing your wonderful actions! I am learning so much!

Michelle August 15, 2010 9:53 PM  

This action is AWE SOME!!!!!
Thank you....
I just had a new grand baby and I am having so much fun with this action.
Thank you again. I appreciate your tutorials and ALL your actions.

CBH August 16, 2010 8:09 AM  

Thank you so much for this post. I want to let you know that I posted a link to your blog in CBH Digital Scrapbooking Freebies, under the Page 10 post on Aug. 16, 2010. Thanks again.

Jody August 16, 2010 8:33 AM  

Great action. I am going to try and figure out how to make an action to remove green from a bunch of photos I took this summer.

Maybe you could help me out on how to do this sometime. Thanks for all the wonderful actions you share with us.

Parker315@shaw.ca

Kim August 16, 2010 8:55 AM  

Thank you, Thank you, Thank you. I am VERY excited about this. I am constantly in the "Battle of the Skin tone" during editing...babies can be so red and blotchy. I am super exicted. Thank you so much for everything!

Larna August 16, 2010 9:06 AM  

Thank You so much for this Rita! Us PSE users are very grateful!

:) Tiff August 16, 2010 10:38 AM  

love this. worked a treat!!

Lori@VisibleSoulPhotography August 16, 2010 5:19 PM  

OMG Rita...you are genius! You could not have times this any better...I have a sweet angel face that has splotchy skin.

Problem Solved!

Nikki Paige Photography August 17, 2010 12:11 AM  

Rita thanks so much for sharing so many wonderful actions! I use your actions all the time! :)

Nikki Paige Photography August 17, 2010 12:12 AM  

Rita thanks so much for sharing your actions! I use them all the time. They are real time savers and make my photos look amazing! :) You are the best!

Grzegorz October 20, 2010 3:30 PM  

Works like charm. I am learning so much here. Thanks Rita.

Anonymous December 10, 2010 3:30 AM  

Thank you so much! I have referred so many people to your wondeful site!