>>> Discussion: Skin Tones

ivar · May 16, 2010

Next topic: Skin Tones! How do you get them 'right'?

Do you use camera calibration tools/grey cards/other 'pre-shoot' tools? AWB only? Do you fix them in post? :ear

If you have any topics/questions that you would like discussed, please let me know :thumb

adbsgicom · May 16, 2010

I need to be better about shooting my grey target (i.e., having it with me), but I shoot raw, find the white point I like in one image and for that set of lighting, blast the color balance to them all in lightroom. The grey card would save me some time, just need to get in the habit. Though I've gotten good skin tones from AWB with some tweaking, I want to use the grey target to speed the starting point. I generally find that if the AWB is off by too much, I end up over-compensating and then have to come back and ease off.

Andy · May 16, 2010

I follow these guidelines:

http://www.smugmug.com/help/skin-tone

and for the worst stuff:

http://www.smugmug.com/help/red-skin-tones

jeffreaux2 · May 17, 2010

Andy wrote: »

I follow these guidelines:

http://www.smugmug.com/help/skin-tone

and for the worst stuff:

http://www.smugmug.com/help/red-skin-tones

Yup,

That 1st link has been a life savor for me on many occasion.

I shoot all of my outdoor portraits with in camera "cloudy" white balance and adjust in lightroom to tastes. I rarely measure and assign colors for skin, but when I need to I use the method in Andy's 1st link. I like em warm anyways!

zoomer · May 17, 2010

I don't do much.
I shoot em and if they look blue I warm them up and if they look to warm I cool them up.
I use the white balance slider in Lightroom. I always eyeball it.
Usually not much adjustment required, I always use auto white balance.

Qarik · May 18, 2010

yup I just eyeball it like zoomer

Ed911 · May 27, 2010

I have used the first link many times. I find that shooting flash, especially with Nikon's speedlights, that they will typically shoot a little blue and need adjustment.

Well, there's my two cents.

heatherfeather · May 28, 2010

I find that canon's reds are often too magenta-ish... usually a calibration crank of +10 or so to warm up the reds does it for me. But then I open up 1 photo in 20 in PS and double check the CMYK values as per Andy's linkie.

Now if LR would get a clue and include a dropper for CMYK values, it would save me that step and I would love them forever.

Hackbone · May 29, 2010

I start with my camera set to 5200 for the temp (canon). It gets me pretty close. Then I shoot a grey card but most of the time when I use the grey card my skin tones are too warm for my taste. When processing raw files I still put the slider (capture one) for white bal to about 5200 to 5300 and eye ball it.

I have a major problem when shooting black skin tones. They tend to go way too orange. When processing in raw I use the color wheel in capture one and click on a portion of the skin color I am not please with. I am able to narrow the range of the color picked and desaturate the color to taste.

Swartzy · June 9, 2010

I typically go by sight in post but like Hackbone the camera is generally around 5200. I do shoot Ed Pierce's target and custom WB in studio...on the fly at events (especially bouncing light from walls and ceilings) then I wing it. Many times (to my taste anyway) its around 4200 to 4500K...then in PS I may add a bit of vibrance to taste. I always shoot RAW.

D'Buggs · June 11, 2010

I shoot a gray card. The one I use has 4 zones; black, mid, highlights and a special zone for RAW images (scaled in between mid and high). I usually push the exposure to clip the red channel on the highlight portion, then adjust the recovery slider, then click on that zone in the card for RAW midtones.

D'Buggs · June 11, 2010

Here's a sample shot of the card that I speak of.

12cc5ec16ea142c88929a573abc7d0f3

I'm curious if anyone else uses one like it?

Kinkajou · June 23, 2010

I just came here today to research WB issues, so thanks for starting this discussion, Ivar!

I'm also having an issue with a couple right now where the girl had orange-y makeup on and the guy had a natural vaguely magenta skin tone... not only that, but it was hot and humid so her makeup was basically melting off, so some areas of her face looked like regular skin and some had orange-ish patches. It's been quite difficult to adjust the photos and keep everyone looking like regular humans. I think after looking at them and repeatedly making minuscule tone adjustments for so long I've lost a sense of what 'regular human' looks like

Anyone have any ideas besides masking and working on each one individually? It does the job, but is obviously a slow process.

D'Buggs · June 24, 2010

Kinkajou wrote: »

Anyone have any ideas besides masking and working on each one individually?

I think that's what you're stuck with, unless you can find a 'happy balance' between the two.

Kinkajou · June 24, 2010

D'Buggs wrote: »

I think that's what you're stuck with, unless you can find a 'happy balance' between the two.

Yeah, that's what I was afraid of :cry

divamum · June 24, 2010

Mixed WB's (ie mixed light sources) are the bane of my existence at the moment - I really (REALLY) need to get myself a white balance/grey card.. and *use* it.

One thing I've found helps in those situations is to get the white balance as close as possible for something neutral in the shot, and then play with the individual colour sliders to fine tune specific colours. For instance, if the WB needs to be on the yellow side, tweaking the orange slider (usually down a bit) can help. Ditto playing around with the vibrance and saturation sliders (I'm just assumiing you're in LR - if not, then amend accordingly...

). Sometimes taking saturation to a small - value and then upping the vibrance (or vice versa) will work wonders.

Skin tones make me crazy. I look at the work of folks like Agnieszka and Heatherfeather who nail it each time every time all the time in any conditions and just .... envy.

Kinkajou · June 24, 2010

divamum wrote: »

Skin tones make me crazy. I look at the work of folks like Agnieszka and Heatherfeather who nail it each time every time all the time in any conditions and just .... envy.

YES!!! They just make me nuts (the skintones that is, i'm ok with Angie and Heather

). I am a very new LR/PS user (finally upgraded from Gimp on a 13" macbook to LR/PS on a real iMac!). I will definitely give that a try. Thanks for the advice!

winterxrose · April 29, 2015

Andy wrote: »

I follow these guidelines:

http://www.smugmug.com/help/skin-tone

and for the worst stuff:

http://www.smugmug.com/help/red-skin-tones

Thanks so much for those links, that is incredibly helpful! I can stare at my own photos for minutes at a time obsessing over skin tones and fiddling with Lightroom's color and temp sliders.

Hackbone · April 29, 2015

Remember there is a difference between print and monitor. One color is projected and the other is reflected. Makes a big difference when viewing and trying to match.

>>> Discussion: Skin Tones

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