Help with WB/color/tone in post

Kinkajou

I'm finding that my weakest skill at the moment is getting the WB and other related adjustments right in post. I'm not worried about details that need to be fixed using the clone tool or something in PS for this post, but I'm aiming for overall WB/exposure/tone/color help. How do the skin tones look to you? How much should I worry about the color of the shadows on the faces and how saturated they are? Are the shots too contrasty or are they ok? What about in the first set when his hair turned quite blue once I lighted up the image a little bit? How much should I worry about things like that? I plan to take this one into PS to burn the tones back down and hopefully minimize that... but I also don't want to end up correcting every detail in color/tone/exposure in every single image by hand with multiple tools and layers... I'll never get anything finished that way!

Here are some pre/post examples that I'm currently struggling with:

Before:


After:


Before:


After:


Go ahead and lay it on me. For the record, if you feel the need to pull one of the originals and work it up yourself to repost in this thread in order make a point about something, I'm fine with that.

Thanks in advance!

Dmanning

Working on a calibrated monitor is pretty important. Without the calibration it will be difficult to be consistent. Be careful with pushing the saturation as it can mess up skin tones. Use vibrance instead. These images look to cool to me so I would adjust the white balance toward yellow/orange. Are you shooting RAW? It can make a difference in the final outcome, especially if you find the need to adjust a lot in post. Contrast looks fine to me. If you are printing then take time to learn the how the prints differ from the on screen image. If not printing much then I would just focus on producing consistent results from shot to shot. You never know what people are looking at on another computer. It may look great on your screen but imagine what it may look like on someone's 9 year old CRT that is waaaay too bright.

anonymouscuban

I struggle with the same so very interested to see replies.

Kinkajou

Dmanning wrote: »

Working on a calibrated monitor is pretty important. Without the calibration it will be difficult to be consistent. Be careful with pushing the saturation as it can mess up skin tones. Use vibrance instead. These images look to cool to me so I would adjust the white balance toward yellow/orange. Are you shooting RAW? It can make a difference in the final outcome, especially if you find the need to adjust a lot in post. Contrast looks fine to me. If you are printing then take time to learn the how the prints differ from the on screen image. If not printing much then I would just focus on producing consistent results from shot to shot. You never know what people are looking at on another computer. It may look great on your screen but imagine what it may look like on someone's 9 year old CRT that is waaaay too bright.

Thanks for the reply. I am working on a new iMac. So new that I haven't calibrated it yet with my Spyder Pro, I confess. I was hoping to wait and get the LaCie Blue Eye as I'm not that happy with the Spyder, but other life issues prevented me from having the cash to do so right away. Anyway, I'm fairly sure that my monitor is not *too* far off.

I have been trying to use the vibrance over the saturation, and I think on both of these I actually took the saturation down to negative and that the vibrance is actually not that high. I'm at work and the files in LR at home, so I'll have to double check to be sure, so don't hold me to that. I know that pushing contrast will push the saturation of the shadows up, so I'm trying to avoid that too while still trying to achieve white whites and black blacks.

These particular shots were jpg, though all shots for paying customers are done in RAW

So... two things to do are A) calibrate the monitor and shoot RAW. Both good points.

Any other thoughts/ideas/experience out there?

zoomer

Not sure if this will help.
I use the histogram to set the black and white points.
Then if the color doesn't look right I click on something white with the eyedropper, or if nothing white click on the skin and adjust from there.
Do be careful with vibrance, to much tends to turn things reddish or pink.

I definitely find that taking photos in natural light in a green darkish setting is the VERY toughest situation to get good skin in.
Shots like this are where having an off camera flash really earn their keep.
Make sure you have your camera on the most neutral adjustment settings it really helps with the skin.

reyvee61

I think calibrating your display is the first important step in getting accurate results.
I'm sure your new iMac has a better display than mine as Apple had used a new dithering technology in the early 2009 models that made them nearly useless for photo editing. I had to purchase a second display to correct this as there was no other alternative. ( I was not going to be a part of the class action)
I simply used the "default" calibration tool that came with my iMac for the secondary Dell display I purchased and my prints are exactly as expected color. tone and contrast wise minus the backlight of course.

From what I can see on my end, the originals are fine as far as WB goes but the color is just a wee bit flat. By comparison, the after images appear to be oversaturated unless of course you are going for that look.

Let me say in advance that I'm not one who cares for those oversaturated styles of photography simply because I like to capture colors and moments as we really see them.
These tend to print poorly in my opinion as well....

So with that in mind, unless your client demands that "look" most do not pay such articulate attention to details as we might mull over. Like you, I tend to care about the little details in a portrait that will give my work an edge over others.

Shooting RAW is definitely a must and developing work flows in your PP software of choice is important.

With CNX2 I will "save" settings based on one or two images from a specific shoot and use those for the entire set to maintain consistency where it matters most such as WB.

This works well within constraints.
If a specific shoot takes place under different lighting conditions then "one" setting will not suffice.

I'll give a go at your originals to see what I come up with.

reyvee61

zoomer wrote: »

Not sure if this will help.
I use the histogram to set the black and white points.
Then if the color doesn't look right I click on something white with the eyedropper, or if nothing white click on the skin and adjust from there.
Do be careful with vibrance, to much tends to turn things reddish or pink.

I definitely find that taking photos in natural light in a green darkish setting is the VERY toughest situation to get good skin in.
Shots like this are where having an off camera flash really earn their keep.
Make sure you have your camera on the most neutral adjustment settings it really helps with the skin.

I totally agree with the neutral setting for skin tones as I've recently discovered....

reyvee61

A bit of contrast and color cast removal with some sharpening with a wee bit of teeth whitening on Mr.

As I mentioned, I think your original was pretty good already:

Caspian

I like your "after" adjustments. The WB and skin tones look good to me. I also like Reyvee's adjustments too. This is obviously subjective and you are in the best place to know whether the final version reflects what you saw. I agree with the other comments that you probably need to calibrate your monitor. You might also stick a white board or gray board in one of the shots to help you see what the right adjustments look like.