In need of sun: A poor attempt at creating a fake tan

[wannabehorsephotographer]

Am craving some summer sunshine around here - so I decided to try and create a fake tan (oh, and it looks fake) and sun bleached hair on someone. I've been wondering what a good way was to create a tan, but haven't seen any tutorials. I have seen a few on changing hair color though, but none seem to work if I want to make it lighter. Here is my "attempt" - only sharing in case someone can use what I've found out to create something a little less SCARY!

Before


After


...and here's how it goes - or doesn't:
1. Duplicate layer, set blending mode to multiply and opacity to about 60% and masked everything but skin.
2. Created new layer. Set blending mode to soft light and painted skin with various shades of dark grey. Set opacity to about 75%.
3. Created another soft light layer and painted lighter greys along some areas that still needed darkening. Duplicated layer and set to various opacities until skin looked "tan"
4. To do the hair I set a new layer to soft light and painted the hair with a yellow color. I set the opacity fairly low, and duplicated the layer twice to create a more natural looking light color (I don't think the hair turned out as bad as the tan)

Does anyone know a better way to acheive this look? Help!

[Liz Caldwell]

Hows this? Looks a bit less February and a bit more... June-ish...

[wannabehorsephotographer]

Awesome! Looks much more natural. What did you do?

[Liz Caldwell]

Ok... First: select all, copy, paste (creates a second layer)
Then: on the new layer I adjusted the levels, making the whole shot quite a bit darker.
Then I went into Color Variations and decresed blue, making the whole shot pretty red, then added yellow.
From there a bit of fine tuning... an 11% burn on the forehead and a few other bright spots.

Now, your second layer probably looks pretty fake... yes? good. Lower the layer opacity til it looks right... for the first one I posted I did a 65%... on this new one it's a 73%.

I've changed a few things, touched up the completion and such.


and, here's what my second layer looks like:

[Nicole]

Originally Posted by wannabehorsephotographer

] I have seen a few on changing hair color though, but none seem to work if I want to make it lighter.

Here are a few tutorials on going from brunette to blonde that may help you

From brunette to blonde
Quick brunette to blonde

You could probably get that sunkissed hair look by adjusting some of these (though the hair looked pretty good in your attempt).

[mike_wahl]

Originally Posted by Liz Caldwell

Ok... First: select all, copy, paste (creates a second layer)
Then: on the new layer I adjusted the levels, making the whole shot quite a bit darker.
Then I went into Color Variations and decresed blue, making the whole shot pretty red, then added yellow.
From there a bit of fine tuning... an 11% burn on the forehead and a few other bright spots.

Now, your second layer probably looks pretty fake... yes? good. Lower the layer opacity til it looks right... for the first one I posted I did a 65%... on this new one it's a 73%.

I've changed a few things, touched up the completion and such.


and, here's what my second layer looks like:

I dont like either of those, fades out the hair to much. If you do the duplicated layer idea, then 'erase' the hair on the top layer to let it shine through. Otherwise you get a very underexposed looking shot.

[mike_wahl]

Originally Posted by wannabehorsephotographer

After

This one looks a little to much like golem with a wig! I actually like the original better lol. Check out tutorialized.com Im sure someone posted a walkthrough about artificial tans on there.

[wannabehorsephotographer]

Liz, thanks for sharing your technique! I would have never thought to go about it that way. I think I like the 2nd one at 73% better - just bc it looks tanner.

Nicole, thanks for posting the links. I will be sure to visit them. (& thank you for saying the hair doesn't look too bad)

Mike, I would definitely go back and erase the hair, I think Liz was just trying to do a quick example of the tan itself. Thank you for the link, and thanks for your feedback and trying your hand at the tan - it looks like we both had a similar prob.

~wannabe

[Liz Caldwell]

I tried doing the blonde hair, no go It kept looking green

[wannabehorsephotographer]

Liz, Nicole's link, Quick brunette to blonde, was a neat and easy way to get blond. You should try it. The other one was harder, but would pry give better results in the end. I just don't have all the features in PSE.