How to Apply Lipstick in Photoshop

If you have some photos of yourself that you want to brighten up and add a little sexiness to, there is a realistic way to do it. Just open up those pictures in Photoshop and add some sexy lipstick--digitally.

Difficulty: Moderate

Instructions

1. Open your image in Photoshop and zoom in on your lips. Type the "Q" key to edit in Quick Mask. You won't notice the difference until you begin to paint. Set your foreground and background colors to the default black and white.

2. Paint over your lipstick with a medium soft-edged brush and 100 percent black. The paint area will appear to be translucent red. If you don't see anything, your preferences are set to "Paint Mask" mode, so switch the paint color to white and continue to paint.

3. Select a smaller brush and paint in the opposite color to erase any areas you accidentally painted past your mouth. Continue to paint and erase the lipstick area until you're satisfied with the selection area. Leave Quick Mask mode by pressing "Q." Your lips will now be surrounded with a selection marquee.

4. Copy your lips to a new layer by holding down the "Command" or "Ctrl" keys and pressing "J." With the selection area still active, click on the new layer in the Layers palette. Choose "Color Balance" from the New Adjustment Layer submenu in the Layers menu.

5. Check "Preview." Adjust the color sliders to create any shade of lipstick you like. If you can't get the shade quite right, try a different tone balance mode (shadows, midtones or highlights) to make additional adjustments. The live selection will mask your changes to just the lip area.

6. Save your file. If you want to send it to friends, use the "Save for Web" command and save in JPEG format.

Tips & Warnings

• You can actually use a number of techniques to change the color balance once you've isolated your lips, including the "Variations" command and "Hue/Saturation."