Face color in the cold & wet

rutt · October 30, 2005

That little rule of thumb about yellow being at least as high as magenta in human flesh might have an exception for cold wet days.

This is a very small crop of a bigger image. Here it is with no color correction:

And with some LAB work to force it to obey the rule:

Opinions? Split the difference? In my experience, exercise in the cold also changes the balance, perhaps back toward the yellow.

Sam · October 30, 2005

I think I would try 65% original / 35% LAB correction. Of course that's just how it looks to me on my monitor.

Sam

cabbey · October 31, 2005

all depends

rutt wrote:

That little rule of thumb about yellow being at least as high as magenta in human flesh might have an exception for cold wet days.

Without having ever meet the young lady to know her skin tones, or having been there at the shoot to experience it... on my monitor the original looks more like I would expect someone who's been out in the sleet or snow for a while to look like. The 'following the rules' correction gives her an almost jaundice skin tone for those conditions... and look what it does to the red hood?! It didn't really glow like that did it?

Of course, as the photographer it's your call, what are you trying to convey? "The fans of the (insert sport team here) braved a cold snow to watch their favourite team." or "This vivacous co-ed, (insert her name here), is hardly a fair-weather-fan of the team."

So yeah, I'd say the rule doesn't apply here.

I'd probably go somewhere along 1/4 of the leveling shown here for a "general purpose" shot... if I was trying to depect the first comment above, I'd leave it raw, the second, I'd probably do pretty much what you did.

rutt · November 1, 2005

OK, here's another example.

Out of the camera jpeg;

RAW conversion then DM ch 16 portrait tecnique:

The portrait technique has a couple of "knobs" which contol:

the balance of yellow vs magenta, and
how much color to add to the flesh

When I processed this on, I turned down the magenta a bit (to about 80%) and blended in less than 50% of the new color. Now it's a more handsome portrait, but did I lose something? Is it worse photojournalism?

cletus · November 1, 2005

Interesting stuff, rutt.

I agree with the others... between the before and after I'd pick the before. Maybe they could use a little correction, but not too much.

Yes there is a blue cast to both shots, but I think the cast helps. Your subjects are obviously in a cold and wet environment. A slight blue cast to the shot helps to add an overall cold feeling.

Face color in the cold & wet

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