Guidlines for baby's skin tone?

Shane422

I'd like some opinions on the skin tone of the shot. I've followed the "Pleasing Skin tones" tutorial, and I believe my CMYK numbers look good. But I'm wondering if babies shoulnd't have a bit more magenta in them. The CMYK values here are taken from the #1 color sample here.

gmachen

I believe infants usually should have equal M & Y.

(Ditto very light skin female caucasians, or very little more Y.
And go easy on the Y with Afro-Americans, or they'll go orange.)

Y never should be less than M with anyone, any age, any race.

pathfinder

Your pixel numbers are where thay say Caucasian skin resides, but I believe, that infants are more rosy than that myself. That means slightly higher magenta than for adults.

Infants have those juicy pink capillaries in their skin, that adults do not have. It will vary some whether infant) or adult) is cold or hot also.

BinaryFx

The general rule of thumb is that yellow is *generally* equal or slightly higher than magenta for an "ideal" caucasian tan in neutral lighting, with the cyan ranging from 1/4 to 1/2 the magenta value (with 1/3 being a mid level choice).

For caucasian faces and children, the yellow is often lower with higher cyan and magenta than the ideal (depending on lighting of course).

On a side note, I would expect the screen cap of the user interface "INFO" palette to be neutral gray, as in equal R=G=B values...but it is not (have you tinted it, or is this a sign that neutrals are being lost in the conversion/publication of the web image).


Hope this helps,

Stephen Marsh.
http://members.ozemail.com.au/~binaryfx/

Shane422

Thanks for the input. I'll bump up the magenta just a hair, but keep it equal or below the yellow value. I recently started using a Huey Pantone for Calibration and I'm still getting my eyes and brain to recognize what correct color actually looks like. I had quite a problem with being too red before.

I'm not sure why my "Info" tab is not neutral grey, but it does not measure as neutral grey for me either. My values are (C:10, M:8, Y:17, K:0)

rutt

The baby's got to look alive!

I just ran through the Dan Margulis portrait technique. This should always be the first thing you try when you want to make people look good (and healthy.)

1. Green channel luminosity mask to add depth. I might do this more than once if I were fussing.
2. A+B channel overlay blends in LAB with B at 61% to make more rosy (and the color sampler still shows way more B than A (yellow than magenta.)
3. Flatten A+B and reduce combined overlay opacity to 70%
4. HIRALOAM (bably) + conventional (scale) USM sharpening left and an excersise for the reader.

Maybe that Huey is the problem? I hated mine.

BinaryFx

Shane422 wrote:

Thanks for the input. I'll bump up the magenta just a hair, but keep it equal or below the yellow value.

Sweet, I personally would lower the Blue/Yellow channel first, then adjust the Green/Magenta to suit...but all roads lead to Rome!

I recently started using a Huey Pantone for Calibration and I'm still getting my eyes and brain to recognize what correct color actually looks like. I had quite a problem with being too red before.

With luck it will look like your output! If that is correct is another story, but I would hope that you now have a close match between monitor and print.

I'm not sure why my "Info" tab is not neutral grey, but it does not measure as neutral grey for me either. My values are (C:10, M:8, Y:17, K:0)

Do you have some sort of "Theme" running in the MS Win OS???

A screen capture of the Photoshop palettes/elements would usually be expected to read as equal RGB values (it is pointless describing gray balance in CMYK numbers unless one knows exactly what CMYK condition is being spoken of (gray balance is not linear over the tonal range), LAB and editing/working space RGB is less misleading for neutral values).

Stephen Marsh
http://members.ozemail.com.au/~binaryfx/

jjbong

BinaryFx wrote:

Sweet, I personally would lower the Blue/Yellow channel first, then adjust the Green/Magenta to suit...but all roads lead to Rome!

Also consider reducing cyan, which is a red killer. Less cyan should give
you a rosier look.

John

rutt

jjbong wrote:

BinaryFx wrote:

Sweet, I personally would lower the Blue/Yellow channel first, then adjust the Green/Magenta to suit...but all roads lead to Rome!

Also consider reducing cyan, which is a red killer. Less cyan should give
you a rosier look.

John

The overlay blends of Dan's portrait technique have this side effect because they'll increase positive A+B values.