Hello! This happens to be my first tutorial, so be gentle.

I’ll be working with a scaled down version of the original, so you can see how the entire image is affected. Ready? Here we go.

Here is our original image, scaled down:



Pretty, but the colors could be a lot deeper. So that’s what we’re gonna do. First, prep your image. I just used the smudge tool on her skin to smooth it out. The strength of the tool was at 10%. Next, duplicate your image and set that layer to Soft Light. You should have something like this:



This is where the selective color comes in. Make a new selective color layer [layer>new adjustment layer>selective color] and apply these settings:

Reds: -52 0 +32 +38
Neutrals: +48 -9 0 0

You should have something like this:



Add yet another selective color layer with these settings:

Neutrals: +10 0 0 +9

You should have something like this:



This step is optional, but I thought that the skin was too greenish and dark, so I added a layer mask [layer>add layer mask>visible]. Make sure that your foreground color is black, and your background white. Click on the paint brush, and paint over her skin. If you make a mistake, swap the foreground and background and paint over it. You should have something like this:



Lastly, go back to your first layer and select the sharpen tool. I set the strength at 10%. Brush over her eyes to make them pop slightly. Then, if you haven’t already, crop and save your image, and you’re done! Yay!

If you want, you can show me the finished product. Don’t forget to play around with the settings if needed, as every image is different. It’s nice to see what everyone comes up with.