# Editing Black People Skin



## LTP (Dec 18, 2011)

I am just not getting this right. This wasn't paid or anything. I just wanted to learn how to edit darker skinned people. I grew up in a place where there were 3, maybe 4, black families so moving to this new place requires me to learn this if I ever want to start photographing here.

I understand the white balance is off. But is there any way to save this photo? Will someone try editing this photo and teaching me what they did? To me, they look pretty orange, and I don't think that's what it's supposed to be. When I fix the white balance, they turn orange. When I lower saturation in reds, they look dull.. I have absolutely no experience with this skin type!







Thank you in advance!

Edit: The woman also has terrible bags under her eyes. I am not sure if I should edit them out (don't want to be rude) or leave them (where it looks bad). When I do edit them, it doesn't look anything like her..


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## MTVision (Dec 18, 2011)

I can't really help you on the skin tone but I would at least lighten the dark circles under the women's eyes, quite a bit. It's not rude - people want to look their best in photos. Also, the shadowing on the little girls face (from the mom) and on the dads Face (from the girls) is pretty bad. Do you have any other shots like this where the shadows aren't that bad?


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## oldmacman (Dec 18, 2011)

Ok, here's a pretty quick edit. Not knowing their true skin tones makes what I did a bit of guess work.






- the biggest issue was the WB and exposure. Corrected for fluorescent lighting and increased the exposure by almost 3/4 of a stop.
- adjust the levels to bring the girl's dresses to read as white rather than grey. Just eyeballing here.
- the WB, exposure and level adjustment introduced noise and revealed over-saturation. 
- saturation on the red and orange channels was reduced and NR was applied 
- you may want to sharpen your original file as it now looks a tad soft with all the processing.


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## cgipson1 (Dec 18, 2011)

main problem is underexposure, softness, and too much yellow/green

your lighting and posing needs work.... the girl on the right is throwing a bad shadow on dad.. and mom is throwing a shadow on the little girl she is holding.


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## cgipson1 (Dec 18, 2011)

oldmacman said:


> Ok, here's a pretty quick edit. Not knowing their true skin tones makes what I did a bit of guess work.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Nice edit.. far better than what I could come up with!


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## marmots (Dec 18, 2011)

here's what i could do

though it looks more yellow, and green upon upload


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## LTP (Dec 18, 2011)

I understand that it's a pretty bad photo. I took these about 4 weeks ago and I've improved since then with composition and lighting. But back then I just asked if I could practice on them.
Is my edit too unsaturated? I was trying to get the red/orange look out. But maybe it's supposed to be there since I'm used to editing white skin tones?






That's the closest I could get it to their skin tones but I feel like it may be too dull?


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## oldmacman (Dec 18, 2011)

LTP said:


> I understand that it's a pretty bad photo. I took these about 4 weeks ago and I've improved since then with composition and lighting. But back then I just asked if I could practice on them.
> Is my edit too unsaturated? I was trying to get the red/orange look out. But maybe it's supposed to be there since I'm used to editing white skin tones?
> 
> 
> ...



Huge improvement over the original. Just make a level adjustment to bring in some highlights. It does look a little flat, but the skin tones are very pleasing. Looking at this, I can see that I left my edit too red. Nice work.


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## KreGg (Dec 18, 2011)

My edit:


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## ConradM (Dec 18, 2011)

I'd be careful with the moms eyes... they probably just look like that.


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## Tiberius47 (Dec 18, 2011)

Here's my go.

I used levels to get the eyedroppers to correct white balance, mid tone contrast and the highlights and shadows.  Then I used Shadows/highlights to bring back detail in the highlights.


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## Dominantly (Dec 18, 2011)

Interesting renditions.

OP- Your lighting needs serious cash/work.


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## Destin (Dec 18, 2011)

This thread is a PERFECT example of why it's so important to get your lighting and exposure right in camera. You can't make a bad photo good in photoshop. You can make it slightly better, but a bad photo is a bad photo. 


If you'd gotten lighting and exposure correct in camera, the skin tones wouldn't be a problem. They might have needed a slight white balance adjustment in post (ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS SHOOT RAW) and maybe a slight adjustment in tint. Underexposing photos leads to massive skin tone issues that are often uncorrectable.


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## LTP (Dec 19, 2011)

Destin said:


> This thread is a PERFECT example of why it's so important to get your lighting and exposure right in camera. You can't make a bad photo good in photoshop. You can make it slightly better, but a bad photo is a bad photo.
> 
> 
> If you'd gotten lighting and exposure correct in camera, the skin tones wouldn't be a problem. They might have needed a slight white balance adjustment in post (ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS SHOOT RAW) and maybe a slight adjustment in tint. Underexposing photos leads to massive skin tone issues that are often uncorrectable.



Very true. I learned my lesson. I've been shooting in raw since and I think my photos have gotten better. These are some I took today: http://www.thephotoforum.com/forum/...um-photo-gallery/266370-first-newborn-cc.html
Any opinions on those?


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## naptime (Dec 19, 2011)

mom appears to be indian, and thats the way her eyes are. they aren't "bags'

if that were my family, and someone provided photos back to us, with her eyes changed, i would be highly offended and far from happy.


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## unpopular (Dec 19, 2011)

Not a lot can be done here.


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## bianni (Dec 19, 2011)

here is an edit using highlights and shadows, levels and quickmask to select certain areas to be adjusted. i also used a new blank layer and used the eyedropper tool to select the color beside the area i want to correct like the eyebags, shadows on their faces and their clothes, on the faces use the brush sparingly so you don't remove all of the eyebags.


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## benefotphoto (Dec 19, 2011)

Hello, i working with one of the studio, so we make evry day like 14 pack of studio, and i found after 2 yrs of shooting, people dont understand at Theory of Photo nothing, if you use even# one one photo tool# for Addobe Photoshop, they buy. MAin factor they Like IT. or not. They dont even buy all pic in Focus.
So i may be not a Real photographer but important is for me to sell, edit Fast and have Pics Better that enybody have any camera. If user have d3x and dont know how to use he have Ugly pics. If you give something better he is happy. He pay.
So make Nice Pics, and use Portraiture, one one photo tool and clean big defects.


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## Big Mike (Dec 19, 2011)

It's been said, but the biggest issue is exposure.  The photo was vastly underexposed.  So the first thing to do, is learn how to get a proper exposure in-camera.  
Here is one method....How to use a Grey Card ~ Mike Hodson Photography

Next, the White Balance has to be addressed.  You could set a custom WB (another use for a grey card) but it will also be hugely beneficial if you shoot in RAW, which allows you to set the WB on the computer.  

After that, you ca start to worry about where you position you lights and how your pose your subject etc.

There is something else to be aware of, specifically for when you're shooting darker skinned people...and that is the amount of direct reflection vs the amount of diffuse reflection that their skin exhibits.  Without going into too much detail (for this thread), diffuse reflection is the smooth/even reflection (like a white piece of paper)...and direct reflection is when the light source can be seen (like a mirror or something 'shiny).  
Most people's skin has a mix of diffuse and direct reflection...the more oily the skin is, the more direct reflection will be seen.  You usually don't want to see direct reflections in skin...that's why everyone on TV wears make-up etc.  

So when it comes to dark skin, they naturally have less diffuse reflection (more absorption), so any direct reflection that they do have, will stand out more.  The result is that dark skin tends to look more shiny than fair skin.  To help alleviate this, you can try to position your lights to minimize the direct reflection, but because people's heads are round, it would be almost impossible to eliminate it.  So a common technique, when shooting a portrait of a dark skinned person, is to attempt to 'fill the family of angles', so that the direct reflection 'highlight' is spread out on their face/skin, so that it's not just a small hotspot.  
So to do this, someone might use a very large light source, and get it very close to the subject.  That's the key.

Now that is probably more advanced that where you're at right now...but once you get the other issues sorted out, this will be something to think about.


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## KmH (Dec 19, 2011)

In addition to the exposure, dark skinned people have to be lit differently than fair skinned people.


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## gsgary (Dec 19, 2011)

Sorry but it is not worth saving, too many things wrong with it


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