Help with skin tones on prints

[DJ-S1]

I just ordered a bunch of team photos for my son's baseball team, and I'm not happy with the skin tones. Any help would be great to stop future errors - it's order 182415, lustre prints with auto color.

The faces look to me like those old time photos that were hand painted pale skin and rosy cheeks - know what I mean?

Here's my list of possible culprits, in order of likelyhood:

1. I screwed up the colors
2. I screwed up the colors
3. I had the colors okay, then auto color messed with them
4. lustre finish is somehow making the colors more pastel-y

The last game is Saturday morning so I'll still give these out, and probably nobody will notice but me. But as I said I really want to prevent this in the future so thanks in advance for the help!

I'm using a Viewsonic 19" widescreen LCD with Spyder2 calibration. I know that doesn't mean I had the colors right to begin with, just mentioning... I also re-read Baldy's guide to skin tones, but I must admit I'm not totally getting it

Here's the 2 photos -

[Andy]

stby, I'm looking

[Andy]

Originally Posted by Andy

stby, I'm looking

OK I have corrected your photos.

A few things:

1) they are underexposed by about 2/3s stop - this is a common problem, monitors are brighter and brighter, but prints and the histogram in photoshop don't lie :) Your orig was dark. Got to work on that :)

2) the lighting is tough - mixed - look under the caps -- very yellow :)

3) there's a color cast, needs to be neutralized (I used the photoshop curves grey dropper)

4) finally - the skin tones - yeah the first one was too much red- second one better but still too red. Our skin tone tute really works - try it again, and just be sure that the magenta is not higher than the yellow on the readout.









Notice all the yellow under each hat brim?

Originally Posted by DJ-S1

The last game is Saturday morning so I'll still give these out, and probably nobody will notice but me.

And me.

Not to worry though! You are fully covered and protected by the SmugMug Guarantee: http://www.smugmug.com/prints/our-guarantee.mg

I've already re-ordered all 30 of your 5x7 prints, and done with NEXT business day shipping so you'll have them this weekend. Of course, there's no charge for the correction service, or the 30 reprints.

I hope you find this satisfactory - and if there's anything at all we can do further on this, just let me know. It's our pleasure!

[Andy]

BTW, this is one of the best team photos I've seen in a long time - totally good stuff

[Baldy]

Originally Posted by Andy

3) there's a color cast

We see so many too-blue-in-the-shade shots... Neither the white balance on the camera or autocolor seems to go far enough in cutting cyan and adding yellow.

Andy to the rescue.

[CSwinton]

Andy - I don't mean to hijack the thread, but could you give a bit more detail about the steps you took to correct the image? It might help some of the rest of us avoid this problem. ;)

Great photo DJ-S1

Cameron

[pat.kane]

Nice job on the retouch and I'm all for hearing your steps as well.

[DJ-S1]

See, I knew it was me all along! Thanks for the excellent service, as always.

We see so many too-blue-in-the-shade shots...

I didn't see that page, makes perfect sense now. It was early afternoon with strong sun; I placed them just inside the shade with the bright grass in front so I could get some light on their faces. I guess that was good and bad - it added a cast that I didn't notice even though I was looking for it.

I don't think flash would have helped much, since I only have the 20D onboard flash available and I was a fair distance away.

As for underexposing, I dialed that down based on the histogram! I think I tend to be timid about blowing out areas...

Thanks for the tips and the awesome Smugmug service, I appreciate all the help!

[Andy]

Originally Posted by DJ-S1

Thanks for the tips and the awesome Smugmug service, I appreciate all the help!

You are very welcome - it's truly our pleasure! I checked with our lab, that order is being printed today and getting out today.

[Baldy]

Originally Posted by Andy

I checked with our lab, that order is being printed today and getting out today.

What he means is he strong-armed the lab...


I saw the email.