How to Change Hair, Skin, Sky and Water Colors in Photoshop

Here's a recent photoshop project where I needed some references for hair and skin colors: the image on the right is the original, at left is the (heavily) photoshopped version.

The first step is being clear on why you want to change colors. Sometimes just getting white balance correct is all you are looking for. This tutorial is for those times you are trying to create a color that is difficult to get from the original (as in the above example), or create a new color completely.

You might simply be experimenting to find something that looks good. For those times (like the shirt in the sample above) you can simply adjust hue, saturation and lightness until it looks right. Another goal is to try to change something to a target color.  I wanted the hair and skin in the photo above to match typical sample colors.

To match to a color, the first step is get color swatch(es) of the color(s) you need. I've assembled a reference image containing hair, skin, sky and water colors you can use at the end of this post (below).

To change existing colors in Photoshop

Again, the simplest method is to select a color range using the Hue/Saturation tool and then adjust the hue slider and mask out any areas you don't want changed. But in areas with complex highlights or shadows (such as hair) this sometimes doesn't work as well as you might prefer.

So either because you want to match a specific color, or for more advanced control, try Jim DiVitale's method instead. First, create three different layers of the same color, and set them to these blending modes and opacities:

1. Top layer: color/50% opacity; Middle layer: overlay/25% opacity; Bottom layer: multiply/10% opacity. Feel free to experiment with different opacity settings. For example, if you're lightening dark hair, change multiply to screen.
   
2. Insert a Hue/Saturation layer as the top layer of the group to give you more subtle control over the look of the new color if you wish.
   
3. Group all these layers and add a mask for the entire group.
   

To change colors, you simply paint on the group mask to reveal or hide color changes! You can also create a second group of a similar color if you want to have slight variations in the color you are applying, or blend both together in a master group mask to average two (or more) colors.

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Twitter Retweets: Why do some people use "via" instead of "RT?" #HowTwitterWorks

Many folks on Twitter have explained this very well, so I have quoted their guidance here read more...

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How important are you to your Twitter followers?

Ever wonder how many people on Twitter would recommend you if given the chance? Now that Twitter lists are here I decided to find out.

I calculated "popularity" by dividing the number of lists an account was on by the number of followers it has. Those shown first have been placed on the most lists as a percentage of their total followers. (The two highlighted accounts are two of my Twitter accounts).

I tried to compare a variety of types of accounts, using the Twitalyzer 100 list and some well-known names in different industries as a source.

Account	Ratio	followers	lists
arrington	3.808%	16,808	640
ginatrapani	2.738%	28,124	770
Danny Sullivan	2.375%	21,092	501
davewiner	2.137%	25,920	554
parislemon	2.114%	12,533	265
scobleizer	1.886%	100,823	1,902
BrianSolis	1.660%	35,836	595
DrWayneWDyer	1.543%	31,812	491
chrisbrogan	1.348%	105,527	1,423
mayhemstudios	1.233%	36,727	453
GuyKawasaki	1.209%	186,794	2,258
shitmydadsays	1.019%	646,791	6,589
cheth	0.928%	29,425	273
jason_pollock	0.789%	66,398	524
buzzedition	0.786%	44,936	353
alyssa_milano	0.775%	316,048	2,448
Twitter_Tips	0.661%	141,731	937
StephenFry	0.527%	921,469	4,857
Classical_Music	0.463%	9,723	45
revrunwisdom	0.432%	411,161	1,775
zaibatsu	0.427%	99,679	426
Mashable	0.357%	1,677,784	5,982
BarackObama	0.336%	2,549,802	8,574
techcrunch	0.289%	1,102,277	3,185
google	0.270%	1,824,938	4,935
perezhilton	0.257%	1,582,109	4,073
wilw	0.236%	1,436,010	3,394
KevinRose	0.231%	1,165,038	2,692
nytimes	0.200%	2,038,344	4,073
CreativityBoost	0.195%	19,468	38
LaughItUp	0.168%	33,899	57
the_real_shaq	0.164%	2,479,829	4,060
britneyspears	0.150%	3,658,780	5,505
ev	0.146%	1,176,533	1,719
aplusk	0.143%	3,906,386	5,603
GaryVee	0.125%	851,109	1,068
iamdiddy	0.104%	2,188,900	2,278
Sween	0.089%	1,028,063	911
biz	0.082%	1,454,232	1,194
jack	0.057%	1,407,798	797

What's YOUR Twitter ratio?

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Twitter is just stupid, pointless hype?

So many clueless people, so little time... Recently,  Patrick Kershaw wrote an article about the valuelessness of Twitter. An excerpt:

"Consider Twitter…I am unable to see the benefit on even a personal level. I am not a celebrity-watcher, nor do I care what others are doing every minute of their lives. So is any value added at all? I don't think so.…If you cannot see a benefit, don't follow the hype."

Too many journalists have been doing no research on how Twitter is actually used

While Patrick (not a journalist) also made some points about how he feels social networks can be used, many journalists don't even bother. They just direct withering criticism at people who use a communications medium to tell others what they are doing.

Never mind that Twitter can be used to communicate anything; the fact that a few people use it in ways they think they never would means it must be worthless for everyone. Never mind actually researching what you are writing about and finding out what people are actually doing; stick to simple stereotypes.

A journalist's time saver: A pre-written article about pointless fads like Twitter

So in the interest of saving everyone time, I have created a template to assist busy journalists not interested in doing their own research. Simply copy the article below and publish it as your own writing:

Dear readers,

I, an important journalist, want to tell you that Twitter is just stupid, pointless hype because I heard that someone once used it to write what they were having for breakfast. I promise I will never use Twitter.

These things are so easy to spot for someone as smart as me. In fact, yesterday, I saw someone in the grocery store talking about cereal on their mobile phone! Anything you would use to talk about cereal is just hype. No phones for me.

I really can pick 'em, can't I? Someone told me the other day my articles are now being published on the internet. Do you realize the internet is full of pages of funny cat pictures? Another pointless, flash-in-the-pan medium.

It seems like there are a lot of stupid things that will be going away soon. My friend told me people sometimes get offensive messages from people they don't know by email. Clearly only morons use email.

Here's one that made me laugh: I saw someone in the park holding a stupid picture up to their face. Another moronic trend. Attached to the back were hundreds of pages with letters printed on them—all about that dumb picture! Books are unbelievably stupid.

And I can't believe you've overlooked the dumbest fad of all: Why haven't more people noticed—as I have—that other people are always saying stupid things? People are pointless.

That's why I live in a cave.

Communicating is just stupid, pointless hype.

The article beginning "Dear readers" is offered free of copyright under an Uncreative Morons license.

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