by Bassman58 on Mon Nov 29, 2004 4:54 am
I have PSP9 but I can help. I use the lighten/darken tool, the smudge tool and I also use the paint brush tool. If you want to darken the areas around the nose, forehead and cheeks use the eye dropper to select the darker color. Then set the opacity very low (5-15 %) and paint in the lighter section. You can darken the section gradually by painting repeatedly over the same section (this is called build up). You can then make a gradual change from dark to light. I use a combination of the tools to get the desired effect. Ocassionally I use the airbrush tool with the opacity lowered. Another method I use is to use the hue/saturation/lightness (as Refuze suggested), color balance or brightness/contrast tools to adjust the lighter layer. When it nearly matches the darker layer it will be much easier to blend. The only problem is this effects the whole image. The hair color may be effected too much, so I often copy the hair section (use the lasso tool) and paste it as a new layer above the original hair.