The reason the white background is turned to black is that it is a perfect specular color - white.

I don't think you can get a despec shader to ignore white - that's exactly where it needs to be applied.

Yes I understand that's not in the face, but the shader doesn't know that. Remember, the shader gets to work on one tiny spot at a time, not even a whole pixel. It can't look around and go "oh, I'm not on the face anymore".

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Renderosity forum reply notifications are wonky. If I read a follow-up in a thread, but I don't myself reply, then notifications no longer happen AT ALL on that thread. So if I seem to be ignoring a question, that's why. (Updated September 23, 2019)