Changing skin tones

[bigbear]

Hello,
I am new to gimp 2.8.4 and the world of photo manipulation. I have a photo in which there are two people, one fairly tanned and one who is relatively light

colored/little tan and both only have faces and arms showing..I would like to get both people with fairly close skin colors while saving the background.

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks, bigbear

[adlabs6]

Hi and welcome to SPS!

First thing I'd try is using the "Free Select" tool, and carefully selecting the desired areas of each person. Then copy/paste each person's selection onto their own new layer above the background. From there, you can "Hue-Saturation" dialog to adjust each toward a sort of visual middle point.

This method will also change things like their eyes or hair color, if they are included on a new layer. Since each will have been duplicated on a new layer, you can use a small brush and erase any details that you don't want to have colors changed on the new layers, and the original colors will show through from the background image.

This is fairly detailed work, but can give excellent results.

[jannatul18]

I can do this changing skin tone using Photoshop but didnt tried with GIMP yet. Is there much difference in editing between Photoshop and GIMP? Which one is much easier and better?

[Serval]

The way how to do this job do not differ too much between Gimp and Photoshop, when you use hue and saturation.
Which is the best? I'd say ther one that suits you most.
Personally I'd use the Camera RAW Filter in Photoshop to do things like this, since it also offers quite a few other options to manipulate light and colors in a photo. I don't know which option in Gimp comes closest to that.

For comparing Photoshop and GIMP you have to take into consideration what both can do vs what you have to pay for it.