Add a brown tan to a pale skin in Photoshop

If you think you look too pale on your vacation bikini photos, you can add some nice tan to them, without risking a sunburn.

Open a picture you want to add some nice tan too.

Let's now make a selection using the Quick Mask Mode.

Click here if you want to learn about making selections using the Quick Mask Mode.

Create a selection of the skin you want to add some tan to.

Press Q to Edit in Standard Mode again.

Press Shift + Ctrl + I to inverse the selection.

Let's now make the edges of our selection a bit softer.

In the menu click Select and choose Refine Edge...

Set Smooth to about 8 and Feather to about 1.0 px.

Click OK.

Selection is now finished.

Press Ctrl + J to create a new layer from the selection.

In the menu click Image, Adjustment and choose Exposure...

Set the Gamma Correction to about 0.42, don't over do it though.

Click OK.

Press Ctrl + J to duplicate the layer.

This time Ctrl + J duplicated the whole layer into a new selection, as you probably noticed in the Step 7 the same function created a new layer from your selection.

In the menu click Image, Adjustments and choose Photo Filter...

Choose the Color option and click the color square to choose a new color (see picture).

Select a nice golden brown color.

I've chosen the color with the code #90560a.

Click OK.

Boost the filter Density to 100 % and uncheck the Preserve Luminosity option.

Click OK.

Set the top layer's Blending Mode to Darken and Opacity to about 20%.

Now select the middle layer (Layer 1).

In the menu click Image, Adjustments and choose Brightness/Contrast...

Set the Brightness to about -20 and Contrast to 10.

Play a bit with the sliders to achieve results suited for your own image.

Click OK.

And that's it, a nice tan of brown has been applied.

And the original picture for comparison.