Help For Red Winter Cheeks!

This photo...

...was made possible with the magic of actions!

I'm not exactly a cold weather kinda gal...but this Ohio winter has forced me to venture out in the snow for a few snow shoots.  And you know what comes with snow...snotty noses, dry skin, chapped lips and bright red cheeks!  Those non-photo-friendly things are exactly what I was faced with when looking over my latest shots from a snow day at the park~

But, thanks to my newest favorite action, Baby Powder Room from Coffeeshop, I've been able to find a quick fix for those red winter cheeks and wanted to pass along this fabulous tip to you!

It's really so simple...

1.  I opened my original photo in Photoshop Elements 6 for Mac:

As you can see those cheeks are bright red from playing out in the cold and she's got a big scratch on her right cheek.  I used the Healing Brush Tool to get rid of her scratch then I ran Baby Powder Room action to lighten the red on her face.  This action has a Red Skin Repair layer that is specifically for lightening red skin...wow!  that's just what I needed!

Here's what it looks like with the action open:

2.  All you do to repair the redness is click the "i" key to activate the eyedropper tool.  Then I click the eyedropper on the skin that is NOT RED!  This will determine the color that I'm going to try and duplicate instead of the red.  

Next I choose my Brush tool and a low opacity setting and lightly click on the red cheeks, which are amazingly being replaced with the non-red skin wherever I click.  Disclaimer:  These are not the technical directions...please read Rita's directions if you download this action for a much more thorough explanation...mine is the lazy version:)

After I get the redness toned down then I proceed as normal with the Smooth Skin, Bright Eyes and whatever other edits I want to make.  After I completed the edits on her face I ran Coffeeshop Vivid 2 and chose the Bright option.  Here's the before & after:

Yeahh!!  You'd never know this little beauty was romping around in a foot of snow and 20 degree weather!

Here's a few more before and afters from this shoot...all of these were edited with Baby Powder Room to repair the little red cheeks...

here's the screenshot after doing the Red Skin Repair but nothing else...

and here's the after...

before...

...after

So if there's anybody else out there suffering thru the terrors of winter, maybe this little action will help ya out!