Different skintones in different light...

tropico

How do I deal with this?

I shot a 15 year old earlier this week, and I am processing the photos right now.
My problem is the skintones.

Some places there were more natural light than in other places, and the skintone is therefor different from image to image.

Here are some examples:







I feel like the second photo has the correct skintone. How can I adjust the color in the other photos so that it all look the same?
I am very confused.

Qarik

1st off..very nce shots. 2ndly they all look pretty close and well within acceptable range for clients. 3rdly if you really want to correct them you can try to tweak colors in LR for example but the best way would have been to shoot with greycard in each light scenario...but even that won't work all the time. Lastly, to fix these relative the the 2nd shot..it appears teh 1st shot has a little more green in it from the trees, so try desating the green channel, the 3rd one seems touch more exposed and/or very slightly cooler. (on my monitor of course).

tropico

Qarik wrote: »

1st off..very nce shots. 2ndly they all look pretty close and well within acceptable range for clients. 3rdly if you really want to correct them you can try to tweak colors in LR for example but the best way would have been to shoot with greycard in each light scenario...but even that won't work all the time. Lastly, to fix these relative the the 2nd shot..it appears teh 1st shot has a little more green in it from the trees, so try desating the green channel, the 3rd one seems touch more exposed and/or very slightly cooler. (on my monitor of course).

Thank you. I will try that.

It is hard to get the colors 100% correct.

Qarik

the light and pose in 2 is gorgeous btw

Icebear

tropico wrote: »

It is hard to get the colors 100% correct.

There's no such thing. What we do is subjective. If it looks good it IS good. Skin does look different in different light. That's the way it is.

angevin1

Icebear wrote: »

That's the way it is.

angevin1

I hear you on perhaps wanting all the skin tones to be the same/similar!

LR is the way to go on matching. The coloring looks fine to me. A wee more light a little less there, but overall, normal, and good shots too!

reyvee61

These are excellent as they are.... as noted by other members.
I struggle with this at times but it's true the lighting will effect the range of skintones but these are well within range....

tropico

Thank you guys! Maybe I don`t need to mess with them then.
It will probably end up looking worse.

Nikolai

Icebear wrote: »

There's no such thing. What we do is subjective. If it looks good it IS good. Skin does look different in different light. That's the way it is.

While it would be fairly hard to make an Ethiopian out of an Irish, everything in-between does depend on lighting and can be adjusted. Our eyes, backed by our super fast brains, make those adjustments real-time so we don't notice it. A camera, however, being a fairly dumb instrument, records the absolute color/intensity values, which *are* affected by lighting.
In case you never noticed, colors do shift even when the only thing you change is the camera exposure (not the ligthing itself) - thanks to the innnards of the RGB color space most cameras use to record the data and we use to percept the imagery.

As a side note I think you oversmoothed the skin, especially for a male subject. Portrait Professional Overdose? Barbie/Ken-look is so last millenium...

HTH
Nikolai

tropico

Nikolai wrote: »

While it would be fairly hard to make an Ethiopian out of an Irish, everything in-between does depend on lighting and can be adjusted. Our eyes, backed by our super fast brains, make those adjustments real-time so we don't notice it. A camera, however, being a fairly dumb instrument, records the absolute color/intensity values, which *are* affected by lighting.
In case you never noticed, colors do shift even when the only thing you change is the camera exposure (not the ligthing itself) - thanks to the innnards of the RGB color space most cameras use to record the data and we use to percept the imagery.

As a side note I think you oversmoothed the skin, especially for a male subject. Portrait Professional Overdose? Barbie/Ken-look is so last millenium...

HTH
Nikolai

Haha... I didn`t do much on his skin. His skin was spotless.

Here is one of the original photos:

Nikolai

tropico wrote: »

Haha... I didn`t do much on his skin. His skin was spotless.
Here is one of the original photos:

Then a tad overlit maybe, especially considering the lighting direction.

tropico

Nikolai wrote: »

Then a tad overlit maybe, especially considering the lighting direction.

That photo is natural light.
Should I have used a different exposure time or f/stop?

Nikolai

tropico wrote: »

That photo is natural light.
Should I have used a different exposure time or f/stop?

Both (plus ISO) contribute to the actual exposure. Aperture (measured in f/stops) also controls depth of field, shutter speed controls the motion blur (or the lack of thereof).
In this case I'd decreased the shutter speed just a bit. Besides, I never liked the "in your face" lighting. As Shay Stephens used to say: "Light across"...

Again, it's a nice image, but it *looks* overprocessed.

tropico

Nikolai wrote: »

Both (plus ISO) contribute to the actual exposure. Aperture (measured in f/stops) also controls depth of field, shutter speed controls the motion blur (or the lack of thereof).
In this case I'd decreased the shutter speed just a bit. Besides, I never liked the "in your face" lighting. As Shay Stephens used to say: "Light across"...

Again, it's a nice image, but it *looks* overprocessed.

Thank you for your advise.

It is not easy to control the direction of the natural light. But I guess I could have put him in another spot.

Nikolai

tropico wrote: »

Thank you for your advise.

No worries ;-)

tropico wrote: »

It is not easy to control the direction of the natural light. But I guess I could have put him in another spot.

It's all relative... Yes, you can not "move" or "adjust" the sun's position/brightness, but you sure can relocate yourself and your subject. Of course it may mean choosing a proper time of day and carefully chosen location (so the BG is also lit properly), but hey, that's what differentiates a professional grade picture from a snapshot taken with professional grade equipment. Shooting portraits outdoors was never an easy task. It takes a great deal of knowledge of both locations and weather/light patterns - in addition to already complicated portraiture techinques.
Check the 2d monthly assignment in Technique section (led by esteemed Yuri Pautov), it provides a lot of info on that matter.

tropico

Nikolai wrote: »

No worries ;-)


It's all relative... Yes, you can not "move" or "adjust" the sun's position/brightness, but you sure can relocate yourself and your subject. Of course it may mean choosing a proper time of day and carefully chosen location (so the BG is also lit properly), but hey, that's what differentiates a professional grade picture from a snapshot taken with professional grade equipment. Shooting portraits outdoors was never an easy task. It takes a great deal of knowledge of both locations and weather/light patterns - in addition to already complicated portraiture techinques.
Check the 2d monthly assignment in Technique section (led by esteemed Yuri Pautov), it provides a lot of info on that matter.

Thank you again! I will check it out!