I am going to instantly regret this, but my friend is asleep...

[e.rose]

...Or at least I assume he is, since he hasn't yet answered my text from 6:30am this morning.

It's not retouched... This is a screen shot... and I'm not looking for CC on this one yet... BUT...

Skin tone. How does the color look? Too green? Too magenta? Too... mauve? I have been staring at this for 2 days, and I feel like I'm not nailing it.

I *think* this is near where I want to be... but I almost can't tell anymore.

I want the overall white balance to be cooler... I don't want it super warm... and I struggle with skin tones at cooler white balances apparently.

 

[ronlane]

Looks pretty good to me. If you cool the entire photo it down, would you need to add some reds to the skin? I'm at that I know I don't know stage on that question.

 

[sm4him]

I wish I could help, E, but I'm pretty bad at skintones.

Still--it almost looks to me like her head and hands are a different tone than the rest of her body? They look a little paler and redder in tone than the rest of her does.

But have I mentioned I'm bad at skintones? I just didn't want you to think I was ignoring you.

 

[e.rose]

I wish I could help, E, but I'm pretty bad at skintones.

Still--it almost looks to me like her head and hands are a different tone than the rest of her body? They look a little paler and redder in tone than the rest of her does.

But have I mentioned I'm bad at skintones? I just didn't want you to think I was ignoring you.

I was using a ring-light with a pretty quick fall off... plus... I didn't have an MUA on this shoot, so I'm sure her foundation isn't quite the right color for her.

I'll address the matching in post, but I'm just trying to find the right balance overall.

 

[Scatterbrained]

If you're having issues with skintones I usually fall back on trusty CMYK ratios. You can get an idea of the process here:
How do I correct skin tones? | SmugMug

 

[Vtec44]

I want the overall white balance to be cooler... I don't want it super warm... and I struggle with skin tones at cooler white balances apparently.

I need you to send me more pictures of her j/k Did you use any color correction tools like X-Rite ColorChecker Passport ?

 

[Forkie]

I really like the colour of her skin actually, but there are some reds in her cheeks around the cheekbone areas and also around her eyelids that could do with some reduction (well, I'd remove them anyway!).

They can be removed easily by adjusting the red saturation levels.

Assuming Photoshop: In a saturation adjustment layer, click the little finger with two arrows in the adjustment window (next to the dropdown that says "master"), your cursor will change to a colour dropper. Click the dropper on a patch of the redness and "Master" will change to either "reds" or "magentas", whichever it thinks is closest.

Push your saturation and hue levels all the way up (your image will turn bright blue/green), then grab the colour selection slider at the bottom and drag it to the left until just your red patches are highlighted (you may get other areas highlighted too, in the hair and the shadows - that's fine). Now return your hue and saturation sliders back to "0". Now, push your hue slider slowly to the right until the reds have just about been cancelled out (zoom in to check you haven't gone too far - you will be able to see a solid transition from skin colour to yellow/green if you've pushed it too much).

You might find after this that the colours in the face are much more even and you can better judge the overall temperature of the shot and make more accurate global adjustments.

Hope this helps!

 

[e.rose]

I want the overall white balance to be cooler... I don't want it super warm... and I struggle with skin tones at cooler white balances apparently.

I need you to send me more pictures of her j/k Did you use any color correction tools like X-Rite ColorChecker Passport ?

Nope. I have one, but I never use it.

I really like the colour of her skin actually, but there are some reds in her cheeks around the cheekbone areas and also around her eyelids that could do with some reduction (well, I'd remove them anyway!).

They can be removed easily by adjusting the red saturation levels.

Assuming Photoshop: In a saturation adjustment layer, click the little finger with two arrows in the adjustment window (next to the dropdown that says "master"), your cursor will change to a colour dropper. Click the dropper on a patch of the redness and "Master" will change to either "reds" or "magentas", whichever it thinks is closest.

Push your saturation and hue levels all the way up (your image will turn bright blue/green), then grab the colour selection slider at the bottom and drag it to the left until just your red patches are highlighted (you may get other areas highlighted too, in the hair and the shadows - that's fine). Now return your hue and saturation sliders back to "0". Now, push your hue slider slowly to the right until the reds have just about been cancelled out (zoom in to check you haven't gone too far - you will be able to see a solid transition from skin colour to yellow/green if you've pushed it too much).

You might find after this that the colours in the face are much more even and you can better judge the overall temperature of the shot and make more accurate global adjustments.

Hope this helps!

Thanks for your feedback. The red on her cheeks is makeup, but I'll go back and see what you mean about the red around her eyes and address that.

 

[Forkie]

I want the overall white balance to be cooler... I don't want it super warm... and I struggle with skin tones at cooler white balances apparently.

I need you to send me more pictures of her j/k Did you use any color correction tools like X-Rite ColorChecker Passport ?

Nope. I have one, but I never use it.

I really like the colour of her skin actually, but there are some reds in her cheeks around the cheekbone areas and also around her eyelids that could do with some reduction (well, I'd remove them anyway!).

They can be removed easily by adjusting the red saturation levels.

Assuming Photoshop: In a saturation adjustment layer, click the little finger with two arrows in the adjustment window (next to the dropdown that says "master"), your cursor will change to a colour dropper. Click the dropper on a patch of the redness and "Master" will change to either "reds" or "magentas", whichever it thinks is closest.

Push your saturation and hue levels all the way up (your image will turn bright blue/green), then grab the colour selection slider at the bottom and drag it to the left until just your red patches are highlighted (you may get other areas highlighted too, in the hair and the shadows - that's fine). Now return your hue and saturation sliders back to "0". Now, push your hue slider slowly to the right until the reds have just about been cancelled out (zoom in to check you haven't gone too far - you will be able to see a solid transition from skin colour to yellow/green if you've pushed it too much).

You might find after this that the colours in the face are much more even and you can better judge the overall temperature of the shot and make more accurate global adjustments.

Hope this helps!

Thanks for your feedback. The red on her cheeks is makeup, but I'll go back and see what you mean about the red around her eyes and address that.

Ah ok. I saw the darker make up under the cheekbones, going round the side of her cheek towards her ears, but thought that the redness on the front of her the cheekbones themselves, either side of the bridge of her nose, was a bit patchy which is why I thought it she looked a bit flushed. Either way, reducing the saturation of that slightly might still help you judge the temperature of the overall skintones so you can alter them accordingly. You can always remove the saturation adjustment afterwards if you want to bring that redness back in again once you're happy with your other adjustments.

 

[DavidVote]

...Or at least I assume he is, since he hasn't yet answered my text from 6:30am this morning.

It's not retouched... This is a screen shot... and I'm not looking for CC on this one yet... BUT...

Skin tone. How does the color look? Too green? Too magenta? Too... mauve? I have been staring at this for 2 days, and I feel like I'm not nailing it.

I *think* this is near where I want to be... but I almost can't tell anymore.

I want the overall white balance to be cooler... I don't want it super warm... and I struggle with skin tones at cooler white balances apparently.

View attachment 93261

An excellent way to edit skin tones and have it still look natural is with the red and yellow channels in selective color in photoshop. I'm not telling you there's anything wrong, but you should definitely check it out and play with it to your liking - its probably the most underrated tool imo.

Also, her eyes look really un-naturally bright.

 

[Trever1t]

LOVE LOVE the ring light's catch lights...for that alone I'd purchase one! Skin tones look ok, on the cooler side as you wanted but I'm not on my calibrated machine.