Previously, I have showed an example of portrait retouching using Nikon Capture NX without going into the details. In this post, I am going to explain how to change eye color using Capture NX. I hope this becomes the start of a new series on portrait retouching using Nikon Capture NX.
Below is the photo I am going to use. The model has a pair of brown eyes. For demonstration purpose, I will change it to blue.
We start by going to menu “Adjust->Color->LCH…” as shown below.
In the settings dialog box, choose “Hue” from the pull down menu as shown. Alternatively, use Ctrl-3 shortcut key.
Click on Set Anchor Point icon (the icon that shows a circle with a cross). The mouse cursor will turn into an eyedropper. Sample the area in the eye that has the representative color of the eye.
Once clicked, an anchor point will be added to the hue map.
Drag the hue output slider to change the eye color. If the color you want is not accessible, change the hue map rotation angle below the hue map so more colors are available. You will likely notice the color of the entire image has changed. We will limit the change to the eyes later. In case you are curious, the anchor point does not do much in this case except providing a guide on a hue map to show you where you are and what colors are coming up as you move the slider.
When you are satisfied with the eye color, click OK on the LCH settings dialog box. In the following photo, you can see the color is in a nice blue but the skin colors are totally off.
To get the skin colors back, use the selection brush. Choose the plus selection brush from the tool bar. The LCH adjustment should disappear from the photo as soon as you click on the plus icon next to the selection brush.
Choose appropriate brush setting and start painting over the eyes. Unless you have a pen tablet, the pressure control is not used.
As you paint, the blue color will come back. If you accidentally paint into the surrounding areas, hold down the Alt key to temporally switch to minus selection brush to paint it back.
After you finished painting, the Edit List should look similar to the following. “Partially Selected” means only the areas you painted are affected by the LCH adjustment step.
At this point, if the color looks good, you can stop here. If you want a different color, just go back to the hue map and move the hue output slider around to get the color your want. This time, it should only affect the eyes not the skin. If you want a more saturated color, hold down the shift key and add the color boost adjustment (Adjust->Color->Color Booster…). Holding down the shift key will add a so-called “linked” adjustment. The benefit? It uses the same selection you made earlier with the selection brush so you don’t have to repaint the eyes to limit its effect.
Here is the final Edit List. Notice how the two adjustments we made are all under #2 and there is a link icon next to item #2’s apply check box?
That’s about it. This portrait retouching series will continue in near future with more tutorials. For now, enjoy reading this and other Capture NX tips and tutorials on DPTnT. As always, your comments and suggestions are welcome.
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Related entries
- Retouching Portraits with Capture NX
- Retouching Portraits with Capture NX, Part II - Reducing Dark Circles
- Retouching Portraits with Capture NX, Part III - Remove Hot Spots
January 7th, 2008 at 6:09 am
Yes sir..great tip
I wish there was a way to specify RGB, CMYK, or other color scheme values when making these changes..so one could select a known color
Any ideas?
Jerry
January 7th, 2008 at 3:06 pm
Nicely written tutorial. The only thing I would do differently is select Fill- first to clear selection totally and then use Brush+ to paint over small areas that require hue adjustment. Just a little time saver.
January 7th, 2008 at 6:44 pm
Andriy,
Typically when you click on the plus, the previously applied adjustment is totally gone. Unless you accidentally clicked on the minus first, you will need to use the fill/remove tool to remove them completely because clicking on the plus selection brush will not clear out the effect for you in this case.
Max
January 7th, 2008 at 9:52 pm
Lol, I thought my NX just glitching sometimes with selections. Now it all makes sense, thanks for the tip.
January 9th, 2008 at 9:09 am
Max:
Outstanding tutorial! Very, very well done here.
Your well-written text, coupled with careful and informative screen captures, makes this tutorial easy to understand.
I look forward to more of your work; you are filling an important niche here!
Richard
January 10th, 2008 at 2:51 pm
This was a real ” eye opener ” ( sorry for the pun ). I decide to experiment a bit further and tested a portrait using Levels and Curves. I added an anchor point on the whites of the eyes and low & behold am able to lighten them as well.
Keep feeding me more.
Bill
January 15th, 2008 at 11:43 am
Very nice info…can you tell me if there is any difference (pros or cons) in using a color point instead of using the LCH adjustment for the eyes…I have been using color points to color the eyes and now I’m thinking maybe the LCH is perhaps better??
Why I use the color points is because I can pick any color for painting with and I can also put some extra points in the whites which makes the painting easier to do and I can be a little sloppy with my brush.
On another topic…has anyone come up with a decent batch settings file to bulk process portraits? I’ve been experimenting with the new picture controls and haven’t found a good formula for skin tones and glamor studio portraits….alot of tutorials for this kind of processing using CS2/CS3, but not much on using NX (which is my tool of choice…
thanks in advance
January 20th, 2008 at 11:39 pm
Jeff,
There are some differences between them. The color control point is nice because it allows you to select the exact color. The downside of it is that user does not have good control on the areas it will affect. If you turn on “Show selection”, you will find that it affects the black and white areas of the eye. Not big deal, just some extra paint job with the selection brush.
The Hue adjustment in LCH does not affect neutral colors so black/gray/white remains black/gray/white.
On the other question: I am not sure what effect you are looking for in batch processing portraits. If you can point me to an example PS processing, I will see if I can come up with something similar in Capture NX.
Thanks.
Max
April 22nd, 2008 at 5:19 pm
Has anyone come up with a way to change eye color in Adobe 7.0?