Skins help

Hey everyone. I am currently knee deep into my skin project that im doing. I havnt spent that much time on it yet, but im having a slight challenge getting the seams on the abdomen (Torso) to line up well. I have tried a couple different techniques (Blurring/smudging/pattern brush/etc) which have worked perfectly for all other seams, but hasnt really done enough for my sides. It doesnt look EXTREMELY terrible from far away, but i notice it because i know its there. Anyways, i am attaching a super close up picture of the side and wondering if anyone has advice on how to match it up a little better... Or should i just keep applying small amounts of blur, eraser, and pattern brush like i have been doing, until it matches up? Thanks a bunch

just a thought from a VERY NON-expert:
I see this even on the pro skins... maybe smoothing the pattern down to a single color, just at the seam (at least left to right) would work... but it may end up looking striped and more noticeable at a distance. I think this seam tretches a bit with different shapes... so there may be no help at all for it

anyone feel free to correct me =)

thanks Void. I know i wont be able to get it seamless but i was thinking its still a little too obvious.. and want to mute it down as much as possible. At the moment, im starting a new shade layer instead of the one i currently have, i'll continue that and see what happens while checking back on the forums

This skin looks really good, but I certainly see what you are getting at. There are three particular point in the area of the area you have circled, where your palest tone and ruddiest tones are side-by-side, making the seam far more noticable (which, compared to the majority of skin's I've seen, is looking damn good in the first place).

I would look to subtley equalize those differences. Less is more.

Angel, If you are happy with the skin texture and only need to fine tune some the light and dark spots along the seams, I would suggest staying away from blurring, smudging, painting. Those tools alter too much of your texture to be accurate on the seams (especially ones that stretch along the sides of the torso). Instead, select the area that is giving you the issue (use the lasso tool), copy, and paste it back in on a new layer with precise alignment to the underlying texture. Set the new layer mode to "luminosity" (this will allow you to work with just the light and dark information, and not change the skin color). Hand edit the problem spots with the burn and dodge tools (set at maybe 4-5 percent) on the luminosty layer. Preview, wash , rinse, and repeat until the seams are nicely blended. If you have a fast previewer like Johan's (stickied here in the forum) this operation should go fairly quickly. Once satisfied, you can merge the layers down to what you originally had.

Thank you Namssor! I didnt even think of doing that. Helps to ask


/me frolics off to PS CS3 land...

By the way, same general tricks works quite well with avpainter. And there, you can paint right along the seams, then bring your gray layer back into photoshop, blur it and *presto*

I use avpainter for all my seam matching. It's great!

BodyPaint3d is awesome too. looks great!