adding blush to a cheek

[A Kirk]

I've been experimenting with adding blush to a cheek, and haven't found anything acceptable yet.

I've tried using the burn tool, with a very low tolerance, but it makes the cheek look too dark or brown.

I used the color picker, then the red-eye brush, working on "highlights" and a lower tolerance, but the color looks too stark, or phony.

Could someone suggest a technique for adding a nice subtle blush to a cheek?

Thanks.

Al

[Richard Coencas]

Al,

Try using the Color or Hue Blending modes. You can either paint on a separate layer (thereby not changing the pixels of your original), and choose one of those blending modes from the dropdown in the layers palette. Alterantively, if you have the paintbrush selected you can set a blending mode for the brush on the options bar and paint directly on the image. Both have the same effect, but the first method is safer.

Rich

[BobHill]

Al,

Adding to Rich's methods, you can also apply a brush color (also on a separate layer) and apply a red color. Use the Dodge tool to lighten and apply something like a 17% opacity to the layer.

Bob

[Nancy S]

Bob H,

Have you rejoined the 'two handed' PSE users yet??

Edit: as I have lost track of time...

Nancy

[Sarah Sixx]

I came across this while looking for a way to add blush onto an image.
After playing around with a few settings, I realised that it's not as hard as it feels.

In Photoshop (CS3) you want to pick a soft edged brush, size depending on your image and set it to "Soft Light". Make sure the Opacity is set to around 26%, again, this depends on the skin tone/background of your image. Choose the correct colour, I suggest actually changing the RGB levels as opposed to picking a swatch. Add your blush and smudge/blur as needed.

Voila!