Wanting to to change color of layered tattoos

jukingeo

Hello All, I have a question in relation to editing layered tattoos and makeup.

For example, the model below has Henna Tattoos which are currently brown:

 

 

I would like to know how to change them to red.   I had opened up the skin in the Layered Image Editor and there seems to be a color scale there, but it doesn't seem to do anything.  Can anyone tell me how to make these tattoos red instead of brown?

Thank you,

Geo

 

 

MelissaGT

Your best bet is direct manipulation in Photoshop. That's the best way to work with tattoos to make them look natural anyways.

I could be wrong, but I don't think those are henna. Henna tattoos are painted onto the skin with an herbal mixture of powdered henna (and water I think) and it dyes the skin but fades after a week or so. 

jukingeo

melissastjames said:

Your best bet is direct manipulation in Photoshop. That's the best way to work with tattoos to make them look natural anyways.

I can't even find the file for it, so I don't know where to begin here.  I thought it could be done in the LIE editor in Daz.  There IS a color bar there, but changing color does nothing.  Still, I don't know where to go to find the file to put it into another editing program.

I could be wrong, but I don't think those are henna. Henna tattoos are painted onto the skin with an herbal mixture of powdered henna (and water I think) and it dyes the skin but fades after a week or so. 

Yeah, the product was labeled as Henna and it looks like it to me, but it is too brown.   They have light and dark versions and I wanted the dark version as the light version is too light, but still brownish in color.  What I would like to do is create the look (colorwise) of the tattoos as shown here:

 

That is what I would like in terms of color.

Thanks,

Geo

MelanieL

Your original pic looks like the porduct is Tribal Fury Henna for G3 & 8 - is that right?

If so, then the filelist in the ReadMe says the files can be found here:

/Runtime/Textures/Pixeluna/TribalFury/TribalFury_Arms01.png  ... (etc)
 

jukingeo

MelanieL said:

Your original pic looks like the porduct is Tribal Fury Henna for G3 & 8 - is that right?

If so, then the filelist in the ReadMe says the files can be found here:

/Runtime/Textures/Pixeluna/TribalFury/TribalFury_Arms01.png  ... (etc)
 

Hello...

 

YES!  That is the package.   ....Oh no, don't tell me I have to do the arms, legs, and torso all separately?  I was hoping to do them all at once as the LIE editor shows it. 

Oh yes!  There is one with all of the presets set, I was able to put that into Gimp and then use a master colorize feature to alter the tint more to a red!  It is already done!  Now I have to try it out on my charcter and see how she looks.

I have only been recently starting to edit files, but I wasn't sure where LIE textures were being kept.  Seeing the path has them in the runtime folder had thrown me a bit off, but they were there too.

Thanks for the info and the direct path too!

Geo

 

Soto

I don't know the product itself, but maybe you can create an "opacity" map out of the design in an image editor and use it as a Diffuse Overlay Weight (or Makeup Weight if using the new G8.1 shader). Then you can use whatever color and opacity you want directly from the surfaces tab.

 

jukingeo

Hellboy said:

I don't know the product itself, but maybe you can create an "opacity" map out of the design in an image editor and use it as a Diffuse Overlay Weight (or Makeup Weight if using the new G8.1 shader). Then you can use whatever color and opacity you want directly from the surfaces tab.

Well, since that option still uses an image editor (I use GIMP instead of Photoshop), then it is the same to just change the color and rename the file, which is what I did.   At first I didn't know how to do a global color change in GIMP, but found out how to do it and that was a huge help than just using the fill tool to individually change each element of the tattoo.   So once that was done, I just added RED to the file name.  Then I was just able to use LIE in Daz to sub out the file in the layer and that worked.   However, each portion, head, torso, legs, arms, had a different file, so it was still a bit time consuming, but not bad.  It was at least doable.

However, I have noticed that the color is affected by other settings on the surfaces tab and I found this odd since it is a layer.   So the red tattoo is not fully red, but still brownish.  Which is not really to my liking when compared to the photo above.   In the attached photo above, compared to the one below, the character is the second one below.   While, it is better than what I started with, I am still not happy with the results.   You can see the varying degrees of how the effect is on this collection of characters:

As you can see, they are still very brown looking.  The one too the right was so bad though, that I had to change the 'transmitted color' parameter rather than the 'base' parameter to get the tattoos to look more red, but she is the worst one, still looking very brown.  The one on the left came out the best showing the most red.   Yet the layer itself shows VERY red as I have dialed the tint ALL THE WAY to red, when editing the henna layers.  So something else is interacting and I don't know what it is.

Finally, I would like to make these red tattoos show up when I pull up the Tribal Fury henna tattoos along with the rest of them.  So that is something I don't know how to do as of yet.

Thanks,

Geo

MelanieL

Have you tried (maybe just on one body area as a trial) Hellboy's suggestion? It sounds as if it might preserve the red colour better than the LIE method.

jukingeo

MelanieL said:

Have you tried (maybe just on one body area as a trial) Hellboy's suggestion? It sounds as if it might preserve the red colour better than the LIE method.

Yes, I have tried to do it, but it is an over complicated way of doing it as the image has to be inverted and then the arms disappeareed on me.   So unless an easier way presents itself, I am just gong to live with the brownish color.

It is amazing that somethings the things that you think should be a simple fix, ended up being hugely complex.

Thanks,

Geo