Help!! Need to Remove the Planet of The Apes Look !

Okay...Here's the problem. I notice that the models lip line had a weird shadow (All the way around). The exposure seemed ok, so think it was makeup, lipliner that didnt reflect the light as much as the adjacent skin tones. Oh well, doesnt matter now, just need to fix this!

The problem isn't that bad when seen on-screen, but had this printed on canvas at 18 x 24. The matte surface, and of course the slightly darker printed image really accentuates the dark area around the lips. Reminds me of those big coconut faces from Planet of the Apes, or maybe an old Al Jolson Vaudeville act! There is some purple relfection fringe around the right jawbone, but not too worried about that

I have tried 100 times to fix this, but I always just mess things up worse. I am fairly fluent in LR3, and workable using CS5. I just dont know what process, tool, and method to use. PLEASE HELP !!! Appreciate any advice!!

Here is the full image, followed by a close-up of the face area: This may appear lighter lighter than the actual print, i bumped the exposure a tad for the printing process.

Byte size: ZERO | Content warning: NOT AN IMAGE

Byte size: ZERO | Content warning: NOT AN IMAGE

I'd use the healing brush in CS5. Select a nearby smooth skin tone, then brush into the darker area. To avoid affecting the lips themselves, you can create a selection around the affected skin, and work within the selection.

Solara, dont mean to nit-pick, but is there any other details I show know? Brush type, pressure, blending method, etc ??

Appreciate the help !

Small healing brush might work.

It might mess up because of the different color of the lips though. If it does, either select the "skin" area first, or "line up" the healing brush:

I tried to illustrate what I mean by "line up":

HTTP response: 403 | MIME changed to 'application/xml'

Thanks Rene...

Actually the problem isn't the lipstick smudge, its the dark shadowed area around the lips. It extends about about 5-8 mm beyond where the lipstick stops.

It isn't as pronounced on-screen, but is definitely visible on print. I tried using clone tool and made a mess. Tried dodging, which whitened vs. lightened the underlying skin tone. I think the problem with dodging is that the shadow distorted the underlying skin tone, so I am just lightening the wrong tone.

I think the only way to fix is to drag the tones from adjacent pixels with healing brush as you and solara suggested, or carefully with clone tool. The "content aware" fill started to work, but it pulls in the lipstick when i get close to that area.

Would appreciate if anyone else has any tricks or tips they could contribute. Fixing this photo will be my weekend project !:p

DanangMonkey wrote in post #11265205
its the dark shadowed area around the lips.

That's what I was referring to as well.

DanangMonkey wrote in post #11265205
I tried using clone tool and made a mess.

That's possible
Go slowly and / or reduce the opacity of the layer you cloned on if you went to far.

Advantage of cloning to an empty layer is that you can use the eraser on that layer.

DanangMonkey wrote in post #11265205
Tried dodging, which whitened vs. lightened the underlying skin tone.

Tick "protect tones" in the top bar.
It also makes a difference wether you dodge "shadows", "midtones" or "highlights"

DanangMonkey wrote in post #11265205
Would appreciate if anyone else has any tricks or tips they could contribute. Fixing this photo will be my weekend project !:p

If you have a reasonable internet connection: Here's a (quick and dirty) screencast I did with the 100% crop you posted in PSCS4. I try a few different options.
All brushing is done with a Wacom, so is pressure sensitive. If you use a mouse, you might want to adjust opacity / flow of the tool used.

Sorry the keyboard shortcuts and clicks I do aren't shown, but Jing doesn't show that. (Anyone know of software that does?)
I use Cmd+Z (undo) a few times, and merge 3 clone/heal layers using Cmd+E

Link: http://screencast.com/​t/SeeTmbiJ

It's about 11Mb, without sounds, so a bit boring

René Damkot wrote in post #11265756
Tick "protect tones" in the top bar.
It also makes a difference wether you dodge "shadows", "midtones" or "highlights"

Yeah, I've found that the Dodge tool can be pretty effective if used with the right options -- it's not just brushing brightness all over things!

I've seen a similar "subtlety" in the LR dodge brush as well, which pleased me, although I need to mess with it more to get a real "feel" of it -- I don't do much people shooting and nothing "professional" so I'm not up to speed with portrait retouching.

Rene:

A Thousand Thank You's !! Dank u wel !

That was really nice of you to take the time to create the video. I will try your method this afternoon and let you know the results.