Skin tone adjustments in Aperture

Well,

This isnt too easy in Aperture as it does not support selective masking. So, you're options are these:

Selective the red channel in the levels adjustment box and tone down the red in the photo. this will afect the entire image though. The best you can do is try to limit the adjustments to tonal range of the skin affected.

Another option is to adjust the white balance and temperature of the photo.

Lastly, and what I would do, is do a batch curves adjustment in PhotoShop and then selectively mask as needed. More intensive, but will lead to a better overall result.

Your choice. 🙂

In my view it really depends on why the skin is too red. Did you shoot raw? Is the white balance off, so that all it needs is white balance adjustment? Easy if it's raw. Is the color balance off in the whole photograph? Toning down the red may work, but if white balance is correct, then toning down the red may give an unacceptable color cast to the rest of the image. It's hard to say what to do if we don't have more info about the image. What I can say is that I try to do the least pushing and pulling of pixels as I can, which is why I'd go for white balance if that'll cure the photo before going to more drastic photoshop adjustments.

Just my two cents.

Mark

What Mark states is correct. It is difficult to correct an image correctly without knowing the exact reason why the image is deffective and what the cause for that is.

However, the solutions I provided are general and broad so that you can get an overall idea of the choices that you have for solving your problem.

As for doing a batch process, I would export the images as 16-bit Tiff files. There is really no need to export them as raw and re-process them. Once you've corrected the images, import them back into Aperture. As for a specific workflow that I use for this, I don't have one. The reason for this is that I have not had to export a large amount of photos, yet, for batch processing. But, I will look into this for you.

What Mark states is correct. It is difficult to correct an image correctly without knowing the exact reason why the image is deffective and what the cause for that is.

However, the solutions I provided are general and broad so that you can get an overall idea of the choices that you have for solving your problem.

As for doing a batch process, I would export the images as 16-bit Tiff files. There is really no need to export them as raw and re-process them. Once you've corrected the images, import them back into Aperture. As for a specific workflow that I use for this, I don't have one. The reason for this is that I have not had to export a large amount of photos, yet, for batch processing. But, I will look into this for you.

I personally don't do an image export to TIFF.

I select all the images in Aperture, then RH mouse click/"Open with External Editor"

If you've set CS2 as your editor in Aperture/Preferences, then Aperture will output 16-bit PSD's after creating one within the version stack. When you finish editing and saving, the changes will be saved back into a PSD within the stack.

Hi there,

Sounds like we use the same prcedure for similar reasons.

Yes and no to your question, and sadly, a bigger NO that there isn't a true workflow. We're into the best workaround FOR YOU. Mine is FOR ME, and (as my wife will tell you, I'm unique .... which I take as a compliment, errrrr).

Yes, the time to batch export and then import may be faster, technically, possibly, maybe, who knows?

No, the issue of getting the photos tagged back into the stacks (if this is of use to you) becomes manual activity and is unsupported by the system outside of sort conditions.

You can easily overwhelm memory with CS2 loading images and Aperture there as well, so I tend to do 10 or a dozen at a time ... more if image size and memory permits. Run an Action in CS2 unless masks are needed, Save and Close. On Save, the image is placed back into Aperture without any further work on your (i.e. MINE since I am LAAAZY).

BTW, somebody else mentioned this. I am a big fan, but have ghad to learn to work with quarter tone Levels. If the color shift is most needful on the skin tones, and less objectionable elsewhere, you may be able to use the quarter tone adjusts in combination with exposure and white balance adjustments within Aperture. Oh, how I would like selection and masks!!!!