Color Checker?http://www.amazon.com/Digital-Kolor-Color-Checker-Balance/dp/B0036L8TGC

[ababysean]

[ame=http://www.amazon.com/Digital-Kolor-Color-Checker-Balance/dp/B0036L8TGC/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1282620348&sr=8-3]Amazon.com: Digital Kolor Kard Color Checker and 18% White Balance Card:…[/ame]

Would this help with keeping skin tones consistent from shot to shot? I can't seem to get that! Like with the newborn photos, he is a different color in all of the shots, but my camera had the same setting?

 

[tirediron]

That would help, but you'd be better off with a straight grey card or straight white card and correcting to that. Best bet? Shoot RAW and correct to what looks right.

 

[IgsEMT]

That would help, but you'd be better off with a straight grey card or straight white card and correcting to that. Best bet? Shoot RAW and correct to what looks right.

Ditto on the grey card!
Not going to start RAW vs JPG debate but

what looks right

- calibrate your monitor.

 

[clanthar]

Hi,

I went back and looked at your newborn photos post. The variation you're seeing in skin coloration is most likely being added in by the camera's image processor.

I'm going to make these assumptions:

You're shooting camera JPEGs and working with those files in Photoshop Elements. I assume Elements does not have the capacity to process RAW files.

The image data that your camera captures is either stored as RAW data or processed by the camera into finished JPEG files. When the camera image processor creates JPEG files it will alter the tone response and color of the photo -- each and every photo. In theory it's supposed to adjust the photos tone and color into a corrected finished state. In practice it works poorly and often p*ss poorly.

Don't know what you're doing in the way of after processing in Elements, but Elements has "auto-adjust" features that work just as poorly as the camera's image processor and almost always take the mess the camera made and make it worse.

To get consistent color and tone response from one photo to the next you're ultimately going to have to bite the bullet as they say and shoot RAW and hand process those RAW files -- those of us who do it that way wouldn't if we didn't have to.

If my assumptions were wrong you can ignore what I wrote.

If my assumptions were correct then adding a grey card into the mix won't help matters any. The software algorithms in your camera and in Elements will screw up a grey card just like they screw up skin tones.

Take Care,
Joe

 

[ababysean]

No I was shooting in RAW and elements does have the capacity to process RAW.

 

[clanthar]

Hi,

My lack of information then.

In that case you should be able to match skin tones between the photos by adjusting the color temp in the RAW converter before opening the photo in Elements.

Joe