# Skin tones?



## Reyna (May 4, 2011)

Ok, I know this is the professional forum but I wanted to ask a specific question on here mostly b/c most of you know the correct answer.

I just can't seem to get skin tones right. I normally shoot with my white balance on auto, but when I change it up, I can't ever get it right. Ex. Here is a pic of my son I took this morning sooc. You can see that his skin just looks too hot. I 'think' it's b/c of his shirt but I really have no clue on how I would go about fixing it. A grey card?... but lighting changes so frequently how does that work?

So, my question is how do you get good, consistant skin tones?! Any help would be appreciated.


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## y75stingray (May 4, 2011)

.....use a metering card with a custom white balance setting. Yes natural light does change you may have to meter more than once during your shoot it only takes a second.


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## Josh66 (May 4, 2011)

I always left my WB on Daylight - because 95% of the time, that was right anyway.  Flash is balanced for daylight, and well, so is the sun.

For the times when Daylight isn't the right setting, it's easy to fix in post.  I keep a WhiBal card in my bag.  I shoot that if I don't think daylight will be right.


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## Reyna (May 4, 2011)

thanks. i metered here on my son's face but it's still off.


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## Naphtali14 (May 4, 2011)

Shoot in RAW and fix it in post is the easiest in my opinion.


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## chito beach (May 10, 2011)

Looking at the EXIF info in the picture I can see that the camera was in manual mode. ISO 400, 1/30th second, F2.2, and WB set to Auto,  Set the WB to Daylight if using flash or in sun


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## bennielou (May 11, 2011)

I agree with the above.  Shoot RAW and then fix it, or custom balance.


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## chito beach (May 11, 2011)

bennielou said:


> I agree with the above.  Shoot RAW and then fix it, or custom balance.



Im from The school of actually learning to take the picture correctly in the first place is always better than screwing with a screw up in post.  Why create extra work for yourself...........or is learning to do it correctly to difficult for you guys?


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## Aye-non Oh-non Imus (May 11, 2011)

chito beach said:


> bennielou said:
> 
> 
> > I agree with the above. Shoot RAW and then fix it, or custom balance.
> ...


While I agree with you chito beach, chances are that some adjustment to taste for the WB will be done in post even if you use a gray card.  One of the advatages of Lightroom is that you can make that adjustment to one photo and sych all the remaining which were shot under the same lighting conditions.


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## chito beach (May 11, 2011)

Aye-non Oh-non Imus said:


> chito beach said:
> 
> 
> > bennielou said:
> ...



The only reason you should need to adjust white balance is if the lighting conditions change during the shoot.


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## o hey tyler (May 11, 2011)

Naphtali14 said:


> Shoot in RAW and fix it in post is the easiest in my opinion.


 
Or you could use a gray card and not have to fix it in post. Easier in my opinion.


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## ghache (May 11, 2011)

This is the beauty of shooting raw! I dont know why so many people are so paranoid about colors. I never had problem with colors shooting raw in auto white ballance. My d7000 is pretty acurate as far as i know and is rarely that off. depending on the light source of course. 

Try to concentrate on "LIGHT" during a shoot not colors. at the end the colors you most of people screw them up in post processing enyway. 

Sometime i try to review my shots in black and white. Its easier to concentrate on light that way, worry about the colors later.


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## chito beach (May 11, 2011)

ghache said:


> This is the beauty of shooting raw! I dont know why so many people are so paranoid about colors. I never had problem with colors shooting raw in auto white ballance. My d7000 is pretty acurate as far as i know and is rarely that off. depending on the light source of course.
> 
> Try to concentrate on "LIGHT" during a shoot not colors. at the end the colors you most of people screw them up in post processing enyway.
> 
> Sometime i try to review my shots in black and white. Its easier to concentrate on light that way, worry about the colors later.



Ill stick to doing it right in camera so I dont have to spend extra time in post.  Like I said learn your tools and they will do the work for you. I'll take the 30 seconds when I start a shoot to make things right rather than mess with it in post and hope you can correct it.


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## STM (May 13, 2011)

Reyna said:


> Ok, I know this is the professional forum but I wanted to ask a specific question on here mostly b/c most of you know the correct answer.
> 
> I just can't seem to get skin tones right. I normally shoot with my white balance on auto, but when I change it up, I can't ever get it right. Ex. Here is a pic of my son I took this morning sooc. You can see that his skin just looks too hot. I 'think' it's b/c of his shirt but I really have no clue on how I would go about fixing it. A grey card?... but lighting changes so frequently how does that work?
> 
> So, my question is how do you get good, consistant skin tones?! Any help would be appreciated.



First and foremost, I would take your white balance off auto. It is wrong more times than it is right in my experience. Use the pre-set white balances and tweak in PS (or whatever you are using) afterwards.  I am not familiar with the D7000 but on my D700 I can use a standard neutral 35% gray card to get a custom white balance.


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## toddjamesphotography (May 14, 2011)

On thing you could do is to turn on your "live view" and adjust the kelvin to your liking as you're looking in live view.


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## bennielou (May 16, 2011)

I agree with this this.  Go for doing it right in the first place.  
A BIG HOWEVER IS: I shoot weddings, and the light can change from shooting one side of the room to another, and this can happen in an instant.  The lights are dim, and suddenly there is a blast of blue spotlight.  A videographer can come in with his light mid cake, and you have to change in an instant.  You might have bright pink uplights on one side of the room, and a cave on another.  Shooting RAW and having great programs will save you.  There is a reason film guys didn't shoot past the cake 20 years ago.  

As far as using a grey card, that would be absolutely impossible during much of a wedding shoot.

For a static shoot, meter, and use a gray card.  (I don't use a gray card because I rarely shoot static).


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## o hey tyler (May 16, 2011)

bennielou said:


> I agree with this this.  Go for doing it right in the first place.
> A BIG HOWEVER IS: I shoot weddings, and the light can change from shooting one side of the room to another, and this can happen in an instant.  The lights are dim, and suddenly there is a blast of blue spotlight.  A videographer can come in with his light mid cake, and you have to change in an instant.  You might have bright pink uplights on one side of the room, and a cave on another.  Shooting RAW and having great programs will save you.  There is a reason film guys didn't shoot past the cake 20 years ago.
> *
> As far as using a grey card, that would be absolutely impossible during much of a wedding shoot.*
> ...


 
I think you're the only one who mentioned weddings... So that's kind of irrelevant to the OP, no?


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## bennielou (May 16, 2011)

o hey tyler said:


> bennielou said:
> 
> 
> > I agree with this this. Go for doing it right in the first place.
> ...



I was assuming that you would actually read my posts. I had several. The last referred to static shoots. As well as the first post.
The other post was for anyone who didn't do static posts. (Like Weddings).
Believe it or not, a lot of different types of shooters read here. ​


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## o hey tyler (May 16, 2011)

28 day cycle blues? 

It just seemed kind of odd that you brought up weddings, that's all. I just asked a question, but I see you were using it more as a long winded example.  I just figured that would be kind of obvious to the OP. *shrug*

Sorry if I "cramped" your style.


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## bennielou (May 16, 2011)

No, not that time of "month" as you figured women who challenged you would fall into.
I use "long winded" examples, because there are other photographers out there who might actually like to hear the how and whys of various situations regarding white balance from various photographers. My post was no longer than anyone elses.

And I posted on the topic of white balancing without having to resort to talk of female menstual cycles. Imagine that?


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## camz (May 16, 2011)

For my style I tend to go a little bit on the overexposed side because I like the bright look.  It helps with the skin tones as you lose some detail when you overexpose the subjects skin but don't go nuts with it. Besides doing it in SOOC, in post I adjust the WB alongside with the mid range levels like the "brightness" and "vibrance" in ACR or LR rather then "Exposure" and "Saturation".  

If your shooting in manual, all you have to do is get one image right as your template in post and you can copy those settings from that image and batch it to achieve the consistency throughout the series.  

It's tough to get it all right in camera especially when your not in a studio.


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## bennielou (May 16, 2011)

camz said:


> For my style I tend to go a little bit on the overexposed side because I like the bright look. It helps with the skin tones as you lose some detail when you overexpose the subjects skin but don't go nuts with it. Besides doing it in SOOC, in post I adjust the WB alongside with the mid range levels like the "brightness" and "vibrance" in ACR or LR rather then "Exposure" and "Saturation".
> 
> If your shooting in manual, all you have to do is get one image right as your template in post and you can copy those settings from that image and batch it to achieve the consistency throughout the series.
> 
> It's tough to get it all right in camera especially when your not in a studio.



Overexposed red or blue is not going to help things.  The OPs photo is overexposed orange.


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## camz (May 16, 2011)

bennielou said:


> camz said:
> 
> 
> > For my style I tend to go a little bit on the overexposed side because I like the bright look. It helps with the skin tones as you lose some detail when you overexpose the subjects skin but don't go nuts with it. Besides doing it in SOOC, in post I adjust the WB alongside with the mid range levels like the "brightness" and "vibrance" in ACR or LR rather then "Exposure" and "Saturation".
> ...



You know you lose detail towards white(highlight clipping) regardless of colour right?  

I was explaining to the OP my workflow for consistency giving him/her  the benefit of the doubt that he/she knows that the WB has to be addressed from the get  go.  I much prefer this rather then touching the skin with a digital brush. Just my preference.


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## bennielou (May 16, 2011)

No. I don't know a thing about the basics. Tell me all about highlighting clipping. 

The OPs question was about basic white balance, not highlight clipping on color chanels or any other clipping. Not exposure. Not airbrushing. Just white balance.


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## camz (May 16, 2011)

bennielou said:


> The OPs question was about basic white balance, not highlight clipping on color chanels or any other clipping. Not exposure. Not airbrushing. Just white balance.


 
[FONT=&quot]The Op clearly is discussing skin tones in the title of the thread and in the body of the first post.



Reyna said:


> So, my question is how do you get good, consistant skin tones?! Any help would be appreciated.



WB is the probably the smart first step in adjusting skin tones but only associating WB with skin tones is an oversimplified approach, there are many ways to achieve this. [/FONT][FONT=&quot]I was simply explaining to him/her what my workflow was in getting there, that's why the mid range adjustments were mentioned by me.  

[/FONT]





bennielou said:


> No. I don't know a thing about the basics. Tell me all about highlighting clipping.



For example, I'm Asian, Spanish, and German.  If I were to do edits and increase vibrance or saturation on someone like me my face turns orange...sometimes a touch a pumpkin perhaps .  What I try to do in SOOC is to slightly overexpose the subjects skin tones in order to go towards highlight clipping a tad...this will helps avoid the Jersey Shore looks on people.

In post I increase the mid range levels for the skin tones like "brightness" opposed to "Exposure" so I don't blow out the whole shot.   This is what I was trying to explain to the op


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## o hey tyler (May 16, 2011)

bennielou said:


> And I posted on the topic of white balancing without having to resort to talk of female menstual cycles. Imagine that?


 
Imagine that, you're a *****...?


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## bennielou (May 17, 2011)

Oh, that is for sure.  LOL.


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## bennielou (May 17, 2011)

camz said:


> bennielou said:
> 
> 
> > The OPs question was about basic white balance, not highlight clipping on color chanels or any other clipping. Not exposure. Not airbrushing. Just white balance.
> ...


 
Now that you explained it further, I agree. I'm just finishing up with a couple that has these crazy skin tones that are driving me crazy. He has blue undertones, and she loves self tanners. Put the two together and it's a nightmare. If I try to adjust for him, she turns into an Ump-a-loompa. If I adjust for her, he turns into a blueberry.

I will say that upping the exposure using curves DID helped a bit. But I finally had to run saturations on layers to get them even close to looking cohesive.  I still wasn't happy with the outcome, but it's as close as I could get.


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## camz (May 17, 2011)

bennielou said:


> camz said:
> 
> 
> > bennielou said:
> ...


 
You bring up a good point and I think most of us here have to unfortunately go through that.  If slightly overexposing the the skin tones doesn't work, my approach after color correction is performed for the whole shot, I mask the skin separately in LR and then desaturate the skin tones - pain in the arse!


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## bennielou (May 17, 2011)

Total pain in the arse!  I wish there was an action for that.  After the first twenty, I'm totally worn out!


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## Reyna (May 24, 2011)

Thank you all for your help! ALL of your responses are greatly appreciated. Now, I have to go practice!!!


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