Please help with skin tones - DPChallenge Forums

Canon EF 17-40mm f/4.0L USM

12/04/2008 08:48:05 AM · #1

Hi! I'm editing two images & I have no confidence in my skin tones - my monitor hasn't been calibrated, and I don't think I'm a very good judge of what's best. Would you mind taking a look & letting me know how you think these look?

Too red? Too yellow? Too green?

p.s. ignore the boring pose - I know it's dull, but I need it for a specific reason ...

Many thanks for any & all comments!

JaimeVinas

Canon EOS-1D Mark IV

12/04/2008 08:50:50 AM · #2

I think they are a bit red. Try using selective color and add some cyan to the reds. That is how I have done it, but there might be a better way.

12/04/2008 08:52:49 AM · #3

Originally posted by JaimeVinas:

I think they are a bit red. Try using selective color and add some cyan to the reds. That is how I have done it, but there might be a better way.

Thank you! I'm off to try that...

Panasonic Lumix G 14mm F2.5 ASPH

12/04/2008 08:59:32 AM · #4

Thanks Jaime! Your suggestion was great; I'm not sure I've used selective color before, so it was also a great tip. (Channel mixer used to be my favorite, but it's so heavy handed compared to selective color.) What do you think now?

This is hugely helpful to me, btw!

Mephisto

Nikon Coolpix A

12/04/2008 09:04:59 AM · #5

better but still a little too reddish and also too much magenta for my taste.
try to do a slight color balance with the green slider to +5 and also try playing around with a black&white adjustment layer (providing you have that option, it's only available in cs3 upwards) with a red filter and then reduce the opactiy of that layer until it matches a nice skin tone. you can do the same with a channel mixer layer in red filter "mode".

12/04/2008 09:09:38 AM · #6

Originally posted by Mephisto:

Huge thanks! I'm off to try that as well.

Canon EF 17-40mm f/4.0L USM

12/04/2008 09:14:47 AM · #7

Great big thanks to you two. I owe you. Not only are my pics getting better, but I'm learning as well.

Here are the images after the color balance - I only have CS2 (gonna have to update soon), so I couldn't try the b&w adjustment layer.

Still too much red and/or magenta?

JaimeVinas

Canon EOS-1D Mark IV

12/04/2008 09:18:32 AM · #8

still a bit too much magenta. Another thing you can try select the are where the magenta is noticeable and do a level layer and slide the gray to the righ or left to see if it changes it a bit.

Canon EF 28-135mm f/3.5-5.6 IS USM

12/04/2008 09:29:32 AM · #9

Oh boy - you guys are being really patient! Jaime - the levels didn't really seem to help, so I went back & increased both my adjustments - selective color & color balance. It feels like I might have gone too far this time (the girl looks a little green to me), but perhaps thats just me. Or have I still not gone far enough?

BTW, I just looked at this edit & the first one I posted, and you're both completely right - the first was laughably red & magenta. I can see it now that it's changed, but it worries me that I can't see it when I first do it.

Kelli

Canon EOS-D60

12/04/2008 09:51:55 AM · #10

Bebe, have you ever tried portrait professional? It's great for fixing this type of stuff...

[thumb]744685[/thumb]

Panasonic Lumix G 14mm F2.5 ASPH

12/04/2008 10:03:45 AM · #11

Originally posted by Kelli:

Bebe, have you ever tried portrait professional? It's great for fixing this type of stuff...

[thumb]744685[/thumb]

No, I haven't tried it. I'll give it a look. At any rate, your example of how it should look was really helpful! I'm going to try to imitate it in CS2.

Mephisto

Nikon Coolpix A

12/04/2008 10:20:37 AM · #12

hey bebe why don't you shoot me the original, i'll give it a try on the editing and send you the psd file afterwards including all layers so you can reproduce all the steps on your own...

Prof_Fate

12/04/2008 10:29:26 AM · #13

Did you shoot RAW?
You can custom WB off the white of the eye and be 99% close 99% of the time.

Ann

Olympus OM-D E-M1

Olympus 12-40mm f/2.8 Pro

12/04/2008 11:02:55 AM · #14

Another way to do this (there are many) is to use a Hue/Saturation adjustment layer. Choose Reds in the dropdown, then click on the reddest part of the face. Then decrease the saturation to taste.

bassbone

Nikon Z8

Nikon NIKKOR Z 24-120 f/4 S

12/04/2008 11:16:34 AM · #15

Another way to adjust the colors if you don't have a RAW file is using levels. Select levels, click on the grey (mid point) eyedropper and find a spot in the whites of the eye that appear grey. Click on that spot with the eyedropper. You can click around that spot as well until you get the overall color adjustment you want.

Here is my effort using that technique for one of the two shots you posted.

Message edited by author 2008-12-04 11:16:52.

Canon EF 28-135mm f/3.5-5.6 IS USM

12/04/2008 12:08:51 PM · #16

I love dpchallenge! Many thanks to all of you.

Prof_Fate - what a simple & elegant way to get the right skin tones. I never knew that would work. Kelli - I went ahead & bought Portrait Professional in a panic about my inability to see the skin tones well, and it's going to be really useful. What a fun program! I'll just have to put off upgrading my CS2 till next year!

Mephisto, how could I resist an offer like that? I shot off the girl's raw file to you; I'd love to see what you come up with. Danke schoen!

Ann & Jaime - many thanks for your suggestions & input. I've learned more in a couple of hours than I did all year!

Kelli & bassbone - it's really helpful to see what others would do. Many huge thanks!

edited because I forgot the last line!

Message edited by author 2008-12-04 12:10:20.

TCGuru

Canon EOS-40D

12/04/2008 12:54:31 PM · #17

You can also use curves to adjust skintone. Go to each colour and pull the middle of the line up to add and down to subtract. It always works better if you add ;) Then, you can go back to the RGB and pull the bottom left of the line to the right a hair to get your contrast back. Just another option :)

ETA: Like this:

Grab the line in the middle then type in these numbers:

Green: output 135, input 122
Blue: output 132, input 123
RGB: output 2, input 5

Works well on both.

Message edited by author 2008-12-04 13:00:04.

Mick

Canon EOS-5D

Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS USM

12/04/2008 01:54:05 PM · #18

Hey BB, this page has great info and tips on correcting skin tones. You should check it out.

Getting Great Prints: Pleasing skin tone

The very first thing you should do is calibrate your monitor.

Mephisto

Nikon Coolpix A

Panasonic Lumix G 14mm F2.5 ASPH

12/04/2008 01:56:32 PM · #19

here's my attemp from your original cr2 file.

i'll send you the altered raw file (some tweaks in camera raw can change a whole lot already) as well as the psd file later.
here are the steps (i hope i didn't take it too far):

1)create background copy (always doing this, to avoid altering the original background layer)
2)create channel mixer layer, preset blue filter (turns your pic b&w)
3)curves for some contrast
4)reduce opacity of the channel mixer layer down to 50%
5)another channel mixer layer to bump up the colors (red and blue channels)
6)another curves layer with a vignette mask.
7)slight shadows/highlights on background copy
8)selective color layer to bump up and tweak the colors a little more
9)yet another curves layer with a stronger vignette, reduce opacity to 60%
10)smart sharpen on another background copy at radius 1.4/treshold 70 and another at 0.6/50 to selectivly sharpen around the eyes and inner face, because it seems backfocused meaning you focused on her shirt rather than her eyes

hope it helps a bit, if you have any further questions let me know.
and like i said, you don't have to take it that far, a few basic tweaks in camera raw can really do most of the job and you could have probably done most of my above steps wit that (exept for the masking and the trick with the reduced b&w layer), but i'm just not really used to this tool, and i probably have a layers fetish or sumpn...lol

12/04/2008 02:30:12 PM · #20

Originally posted by Mick:

Hey BB, this page has great info and tips on correcting skin tones. You should check it out.

Getting Great Prints: Pleasing skin tone

The very first thing you should do is calibrate your monitor.

Mick - that's a great resource. I love having objective rules to follow, and easy fixes. Many thanks!

12/04/2008 02:30:50 PM · #21

Originally posted by Mephisto:

here's my attemp from your original cr2 file.

i'll send you the altered raw file (some tweaks in camera raw can change a whole lot already) as well as the psd file later.
here are the steps (i hope i didn't take it too far):

1)create background copy (always doing this, to avoid altering the original background layer)
2)create channel mixer layer, preset blue filter (turns your pic b&w)
3)curves for some contrast
4)reduce opacity of the channel mixer layer down to 50%
5)another channel mixer layer to bump up the colors (red and blue channels)
6)another curves layer with a vignette mask.
7)slight shadows/highlights on background copy
8)selective color layer to bump up and tweak the colors a little more
9)yet another curves layer with a stronger vignette, reduce opacity to 60%
10)smart sharpen on another background copy at radius 1.4/treshold 70 and another at 0.6/50 to selectivly sharpen around the eyes and inner face, because it seems backfocused meaning you focused on her shirt rather than her eyes

hope it helps a bit, if you have any further questions let me know.
and like i said, you don't have to take it that far, a few basic tweaks in camera raw can really do most of the job and you could have probably done most of my above steps wit that (exept for the masking and the trick with the reduced b&w layer), but i'm just not really used to this tool, and i probably have a layers fetish or sumpn...lol

Fantastic Mephisto! You went above & beyond, and helped me tremendously.