Does anyone have a handle on matching the color and intensity of 2 seperate photos, such as getting the skin color in several photos to match in preperation for texturing. My interest is in doing this manually, I have a couple advanced books on Photoshop CS2, the authors don't really recommend using the color match tool for for really accurate results and really don't explain how to do it manually. I also have found it to be of limited help. I assume one would use the color adjustment curves tool but I fail to understand the work flow or procedure. 
Any help would be appreciated.
Chris

Oh man, are you like trying to make a texture map of human skin? 

Yes I generally isolate just the skin areas and use match color, it works ok. I 've got a couple of really good books on photoshop and both authors say that for really professional results you shold avoid using it and match manually, but they don't address specificall how. Match color gets you close but there are many times I have to spend a lot of time tweaking the image.

yes sir

i would go ahead and try the color matching tool anyway, i think it gets good results as long as it was during the same photo session with similar lighting. Also you can use the info tool to sample the colors you are trying to match.

Attached Link: Renderosity Market Place Solutions

You would be best to make sure the images you are working with came from the same photo shoot and were set up for digital art work, like the models you can find at the store here at Renderosity. Or, hire a model and do the photography yourself, which is where I am at today. 

The learning curve on this stuff is way high, and hard I might add. There is little out there to get started with and, the industry (I do mean industry) secrets are very closely held. It takes year to develop the skills from raw talent, and few people will simply tell you how to do  it for free, or little cost. 

If you want to learn how to do it as quickly as possible, enroll in a local school that teaches from basics to advanced courses and expect to pay thousands of dollars. This may be a hard apple to swallow, but looking back on all the time, money, and efforts wasted buying and trying stuff I didn't need, I wish I'd have taken my own advice...

For the type of photos you will need, take a look at the link Ive posted above to the Renderosity Market Place. If you want to work with these types of images, I will tell you how to begin in a separate thread. Mind you, I'll show you how to get started, the rest is experimenting with it until you get it to work for you.

Attached Link: Thread for Chris

Cryptojoe is right - this takes a LOT of time, and LOTS MORE practice! This is not for the beginner to Photoshop - this is advanced level to get it right.

What you'll find yourself doing is working hard to match any seams between the different photos of skin you're using (an art in and of itself), and then seperate masked Adjustment Layers of Curves and Levels to adjust color, contrast, etc. so they match to each other. To do that means you need an understanding of color correction and how it works with different materials and contrasts to begin with - the same adjustments can react very differently depending on the material it's applied to.

I am NOT saying it can't be done so don't bother trying - just letting you know you have a long and fairly uphill road ahead. Practice, practice, practice!
Good luck-
-Lew ;-)

Thank you all for your responses, I apologize for any misunderstanding, I am not a beginner at this. My question dealt, I thought, with advanced color matching of two separate photo's. I have used match color many times. I have 2 books "Adobe Photoshop CS for Photographers" and "The Advanced Digital Photographers Workbook" - both indicate that the match color tool in Photoshop is somewhat inaccurate and that color matching can be accomplished with much better results doing it manually. I was basically asking for a procedure most likely using curves adjustment. I have in the past been laboriously adjusting levels,gamma,hue, saturation etc. with good results, however from my reading of these books I thought perhaps there was a better way. I have in the interim since I posted this thread, experimented with the match color tool and have found that if I mask just specific areas of similar color and texture, I can make minor adjustments with fade and get good enough results.
Thanks again

Chris

Aaah - I get you!
No, sorry, there's no faster way.
Color Match worls best for something like, say, product photography when you've shot a bunch of things the same exact way - you can CC one to how you like it, then apply the Color Match to the rest to save yourself some time. It's not perfect, but it's quick and is usually good enough.

For doing something like this, skin texturing, it's the long way...
I know you were hoping for a better answer, but the quickie method is just that - quickie in a pinch. It doesn't hold up to scrutiny as far as quality goes.

Good luck-
-Lew ;-)

As a followup to this thread, an exact match of color between 2 skin samples from 2 different photos can be accomplished as follows.
Copy and paste the new skin area above the existing.
Open the info pallette so you can activley see the rgb values
Using the eyedropper tool sample the color (use the 5x5 pixel setting) of the existing skin you are trying to match and record the RGB values. Switch to the new layer and use the color sampler tool and sample an area right next to the previous sample.
This will place the RGB values in the info pallet.
Open the Channel Mixer tool and adjust each color channel to match the first sample takin.
If your working with the red input channel the red output channel setting will show 100%, adjust this setting to match the red value from your first sample, select the green input channel and adjust the green output to match its corrisponding value and then do the same thing for the blue channel. Once you have selected the value you are changing you can use the up/down arrow keys to get an exact match.
It takes a lot of words to discribe this proceedure, but it's actually very fast and easy and accurate.