Getting Skin Color Correct

[Steve's Girl]

In the low light assignment thread, Gdad mentioned his new S5 was very good at skin color. I have really been struggling with this and rather than hijacking that thread, I decided to start a new one on that topic.

I have been rather discouraged with my photography lately and my inability to get good colors, especially skin tones, in my photos. Call it a funk, or whatever, I just feel like my photos stink.

I'm not sure if it is a software issue, lens issue, camera issue, lighting issue or, most likely, a user issue. I have Lightroom and usually like it. I have found some presets that have really helped with getting the colors I want in my pictures. However, skin tones are still a problem. I had heard that Capture NX handles the Nikon RAW files better from a color standpoint. I had a 30 day trial and just didn't have the opportunity to use it very much. I found it to not be very intuitive and I didn't have a manual or user guide.

Here is an example:

The colors are pretty accurate, in my opinion. But the skin tones are terrible. I have spent hours with this photo and can't seem to get it right. I did get a print from mpix of this photo and it is even worse in print. My monitor is calibrated. I'm not very good at post processing, so I try to get it right when I actually take the photo. Is there something I need to change with camera settings, equipment, etc. Or is this a post-processing issue?

This is a photo I took last year. It is a jpeg straight out of the camera with no post processing. I think the skin tones are better in this photo. I'm about ready to go back to jpegs straight from the camera since I seem to be making them worse!

Any advice on how to get better (more natural) skin tones?

 

[DueyDooDah]

One thing you can try, if you have not already, is to use the targeted adjustment tool in the Development module. It really does help make those final, fine adjustments easy.

I used the tool to manually adjust the skin tone on your photo. Although it is not a great adjustment, it seems to be a step in the right direction. In this case, I used only the saturation tool. The tool made adjustments to the red and magenta slider (red +56, magenta +3). I like this tool because it targets the area you need to make adjustments to, without affecting much of anything else (depending on the scene, of course). Also, have you son nearby to compare his real skin tones to the photo (although different lighting might make it impossible to get an exact match).

Good luck with you efforts.

 

[Groucho]

I've recent spent some time playing with the camera settings in ACR (used by Photoshop and Lightroom), as the default color settings tend to be a bit more muted than other raw converters - theoretically, they're more "natural" but they tend to make the reds a bit orange and the greens a bit yellow.

The settings that seem to be preferred for my camera boost up the red nicely, but occasionally can give a slightly red, blotchy color on caucasian skin tones. Pulling back just slightly on the red can help a lot. Try fiddling with the camera calibration in Lightroom (especially the red sliders) and see if you can make some improvements. You may want to search a little to see what others who have your camera use for their ACR settings.

 

[SharonLowe]

I pulled it up in Adobe ACR and got it fixed pretty easily. I told it to do auto WB, which ended up being too cool for my taste so I just moved the slider to warm it up a bit and it was fine. The original you posted is too warm - too much red in all the colors, not just the faces.

Not sure what settings you are using in camera but you might try adjusting them to be a bit cooler overall.

 

[MarkBarbieri]

Not sure what settings you are using in camera but you might try adjusting them to be a bit cooler overall.

I agree that the solution you want is not a better post-processing technique; it's finding and fixing the source of the problem. What did you do from capture to presentation here that might have caused a color shift? Incorrect white balance? Misguided color adjustments? That's what you need to figure out.

 

[Steve's Girl]

This is the unedited version out of the camera. I just converted from RAW to jpeg in Lightroom. I had the WB set to auto. The skin tones look very washed out to me. I tried the auto WB in Lightroom which was too cool, so I ended up using a custom color temp. somewhere in between. I agree that I would prefer to fix this in the camera rather than in post-processing. Is there a way to get warmer skin tones without too much red?

I have just started to read about ACR, but must admit that I know very little about it at this point. According to LR, my camera profile is 3.6. I guess I am trying to figure out if this is a WB issue or do I need to adjust the color profile in my camera? So much to learn! Thanks for the help.

 

[Lachesis00]

I wish my colors were more true to form. I seem under exposed (I think it's under... too dark? I always mix them up). Even on fully auto. It is starting to tick me off. I am wondering if someone messed with some settings. I know my EV was messed with but I fixed it and I am still getting photos on the dark side with or w/o the flash.

 

[alan]

StevesGirl,

I put your photo into PhotoShop elements, and noted that ther histogram had almost nothing above around 66%. So I grabbed the right-hand slider and slid it to the end of the area where something showed in the histogram. I ended up with this:

After that, I brought the saturation up just a touch - maybe about +2. Does this look any better?

regards,
/alan

 

[Steve's Girl]

StevesGirl,

I put your photo into PhotoShop elements, and noted that ther histogram had almost nothing above around 66%. So I grabbed the right-hand slider and slid it to the end of the area where something showed in the histogram. I ended up with this:

After that, I brought the saturation up just a touch - maybe about +2. Does this look any better?

regards,
/alan

Yes. That is better. Thank you for explaining the steps you took to achieve this.

I spent some time on Nikonians reading what experience others have had with NEF files in LR. One approach is to adjust the tone curve. I tried it in the photo above and made very few other changes. Am I getting any closer?