Skin tone help needed

af-photos

I've had a sudden rush of headshot requests (1 this week, 1 next
week). These need a lot more attention to skin tones than I usually do,
and I don't have a calibrated monitor.

Set-up : tripod, fairly good daylight plus one flash and lightsphere,
shot on Olympus Raw (WB set to 5500). For each sequence (same camera
settings) I took one shot with a 90% white card (ezy-balance disk
actually).

First try : I used Camera Raw automatic, plus auto adjust (mainly
brightness). But the customer complained it's too red.

Second try: I loaded the shot with the white card, and used the white
balance tool. ( 4860, tint +1), followed by auto adjustments : Exposure
+0.9, Blacks +4, Brightness +37)

The following are crops, with the white balance card copied next to
some skin.

The original still looks very red.


<http://www.farfoto.com/090204_BB_TEST/P2041342N2_RGB_ORIG.jpg>

I went to the 'skin tone' page
http://www.smugmug.com/help/skin-tone
which says yellow must be more than magenta, and cyan must be a bit less
than magenta.

Method 1 : in sRGB mode

Levels adjustment : Set blue gamma to 0.9
Hue adjustment : set red saturation to -7

<http://www.farfoto.com/090204_BB_TES/P2041342N2_RGB_LVL_HUE.jpg>

or about 3MB of photoshop
<http://www.farfoto.com/090204_BB_TES/P2041342N1_RGB_LVL_HUE.psd>

That still looks a bit too red.

Method 2 : CMYK method

Convert to CMYK mode.
Set the eyedropper to a 31x31 sample.
Curve adjustment :
Set to yellow channel.
Point eyedropper (center of chin) and press Ctrl-Shift
to add the point on the curve.

RE-READING the instructions it looks like I should do the following:

Increase the point's yellow channel above the magenta
[ In the example you multiply the yellow by 1.66 ]
Decrease the magenta so "yellow is 5-20% above magenta"
[ In the example multiply the adjusted yellow by 0.8 ]
Set cyan to 33% of Magenta
Multiply the adjusted magenta by 0.33

The before/after CMYK values I used are actually
C: 21/17 M: 65/45 Y: 48/50 K: 3/3

Result :
Converted back to RGB before writing the jpg:
<http://www.farfoto.com/090204_BB_TEST/P2041342N2_CMYK_2_RGB.jpg>

or photoshop CMYK 3MB
<http://www.farfoto.com/090204_BB_TEST/P2041342N1_CMYK.psd>

That looks a bit TOO yellow .

I'd be grateful if someone with a calibrated monitor could look at
those --- and (if you deem neither acceptable) even more grateful if
you could tweak my values or point me to a better method.

(ps : The final shots are correctly focused -- I can apply the correction just to skin, or to the whole photo).

Andy

Your 2nd version is just right

af-photos

Andy wrote:

Your 2nd version is just right

My 'method 2' (Third picture) ? Thanks!

I guess I need a monitor calibrator, then!!

ps -- I've been googling for an hour, and sat through three droning tutorials, and haven't found an eassier way of doing it than the smug-mug methods!

My only problem with the tutorial is that it's described as 'percentages of percentages'. When it says (for instance) that yellow should be "20% more" than magenta does that mean that I ADD 20% to magneta, or that I MULTIPLY the magenta by 1.20 ?

nipprdog

Quick PS Elements skin tone adjustment.

With just a touch of saturation

af-photos

Thanks, Jim / nipprdog .

Andy clarified in a PM that he liked the third picture (second method).
[ Fantastic smug support, as usual! ]

The short answer is that I need to calibrate my monitor !

And the results are very different on my desktop/Viewsonic lcd [fluorescent backlight] and on my laptop [led backlight]. I'd previously seen this on a web site where I had a beautiful 'aged paper' background -- which came out sickly green on my laptop.

In addition to the overall color I also need to tone down some of the veins. The 'blur' tool gives acceptable results, but I'll look at some other techniques.