Fair Skin

[pixmedic]

B&W is your fix for everything!

It is when I am too lazy/inept to fix bad colors.

no no, im not saying its bad...per se....
im just starting to notice a trend.

 

[runnah]

B&W is your fix for everything!

It is when I am too lazy/inept to fix bad colors.

no no, im not saying its bad...per se....
im just starting to notice a trend.

When in doubt throw the color out!

 

[pixmedic]

I don't use an incident meter. I will however generally overexpose about 1+ on her to make sure she is still on the zone I want her to be. The backround is irrelevant to me, because I can brighten it up if I need to, but if I use a reflector I generally don't even need to brighten the backround up at all. If the OP uses a incident meter then he would know more about that then I would.
OP, Wonky means:
Wickity Wack, just not right, looks funky, just "off"
This is my definition.

this is what I do as well.
I never wanted to spend the money on a "real" meter.
maybe one day I will just to see if there's any improvement from using it.

 

[ttobaben]

Thanks for the feedback ladies and gents. Just to clarify, I got the "wonky' meant something was off, but I wanted clarification on what runnah thought it was...so thanks for pinpointing that!

If you do have a raw file the blown highlights may not be blown in the raw capture and it may be possible to process the photo to retain those highlights.

Joe, unfortunately the highlights are blown out in the RAW file. I think in my attempts to quickly process the picture in PS and see if I could do something with the blown out portions I made it...well, wonky.

KT, will try spot meter next time and see how that works out...with a reflector naturally.

 

[Derrel]

When in doubt throw the color out!

I have to agree...when in doubt, throw the color out.

There *is* a way to fix this....I used to know how to do it too, back when I made this kind of mistake a decade ago with my cranky old Nikon D1 and its uber-narrow dynamic range....something like making a highlight mask, feathering the selection by 2 or 3 pixels, inverting the selection, then using the curves or something...I cannot recall exactly...I asked a buddy of mine who worked for our region's largest daily newspaper as a photo desk Photoshop and pre-press "toning" guy...he was in charge of fixing up ALL of the images that were going to be run in the paper, usually about 35 to 45 images every night, and he also had to fix up "submissions" from all manner of bungling folks, and he taught me how to fix such overexposed skintones.

I agree--her face and arm have been blown out...but in B&W it can be made to look pretty close to acceptable.

 

[Ysarex]

Thanks for the feedback ladies and gents. Just to clarify, I got the "wonky' meant something was off, but I wanted clarification on what runnah thought it was...so thanks for pinpointing that!

If you do have a raw file the blown highlights may not be blown in the raw capture and it may be possible to process the photo to retain those highlights.

Joe, unfortunately the highlights are blown out in the RAW file. I think in my attempts to quickly process the picture in PS and see if I could do something with the blown out portions I made it...well, wonky.

KT, will try spot meter next time and see how that works out...with a reflector naturally.

From what I see in the JPEG you posted I'm not convinced the highlights are blown in the raw file. If you're relying only on Photoshop to tell you that I remain not convinced. If you wish you can upload the raw file for me and I'll have a look.

ftp://photojoes.net
user name: Zeiss
password: 38-biogon

Joe

 

[ttobaben]

Thanks Joe, I will upload it a little later this evening. I have several shot of her that are this way...if I can figure out how to recover them that would be great...if not then so be it. Either way, I learned what to do on my next shoot with her.

Derrel, Thanks for the info. I will look into that as well.

 

[runnah]

When in doubt throw the color out!

I have to agree...when in doubt, throw the color out.

There *is* a way to fix this....I used to know how to do it too, back when I made this kind of mistake a decade ago with my cranky old Nikon D1 and its uber-narrow dynamic range....something like making a highlight mask, feathering the selection by 2 or 3 pixels, inverting the selection, then using the curves or something...I cannot recall exactly...I asked a buddy of mine who worked for our region's largest daily newspaper as a photo desk Photoshop and pre-press "toning" guy...he was in charge of fixing up ALL of the images that were going to be run in the paper, usually about 35 to 45 images every night, and he also had to fix up "submissions" from all manner of bungling folks, and he taught me how to fix such overexposed skintones.

I agree--her face and arm have been blown out...but in B&W it can be made to look pretty close to acceptable.

You can do all that but IMO it still looks off at the end of the day. Not to mention it's a PITA.

 

[ttobaben]

Okay Joe, I uploaded the RAW file...knock yourself out.

 

[Ysarex]

Okay Joe, I uploaded the RAW file...knock yourself out.

I was wrong. You did clip the highlights in the raw file, BUT you clipped the green and blue channels and only just nicked the red channel. If one channel remains intact then the missing data in the other two channels can be reconstructed from that one. Don't want to go off on too much of a tangent here, but when a raw converter uses the term "highlight recovery" this is the process appropriately referenced. If none of the channels are clipped then no recovery is necessary. You need channel recovery -- your red channel has enough data to recovery the blue and green channels.

Of the different software available to do this job, Picture Code's Photo Ninja takes all the competition's heads off with a clean stroke including Adobe's.

So I converted your raw file through PN and then finished the JPEG conversion in Photoshop. There's just a hint of pastiness on the arm but her face is good:

Fair Skin

Joe

 

[Derrel]

Okay Joe, I uploaded the RAW file...knock yourself out.

I was wrong. You did clip the highlights in the raw file, BUT you clipped the green and blue channels and only just nicked the red channel. If one channel remains intact then the missing data in the other two channels can be reconstructed from that one. Don't want to go off on too much of a tangent here, but when a raw converter uses the term "highlight recovery" this is the process appropriately referenced. If none of the channels are clipped then no recovery is necessary. You need channel recovery -- your red channel has enough data to recovery the blue and green channels.

Of the different software available to do this job, Picture Code's Photo Ninja takes all the competition's heads off with a clean stroke including Adobe's.

So I converted your raw file through PN and then finished the JPEG conversion in Photoshop. There's just a hint of pastiness on the arm but her face is good:

Fair Skin

Joe

He's not only handsome--he's skilled too! Nice save Joe!!!

 

[ttobaben]

Nice Joe! Thanks for taking a look at it. I guess that bottom line is that I need to meter better when shooting so I don't have this trouble in the future!

 

[kathyt]

Nice Joe! Thanks for taking a look at it. I guess that bottom line is that I need to meter better when shooting so I don't have this trouble in the future!

Yes, yes, and yes. I shoot to NOT edit. The better you expose in camera, the better skin tones you will have, the less you will have to edit, the less blemishes you will have to correct, and your life will be just about perfect.

 

[Ysarex]

Okay Joe, I uploaded the RAW file...knock yourself out.

I was wrong. You did clip the highlights in the raw file, BUT you clipped the green and blue channels and only just nicked the red channel. If one channel remains intact then the missing data in the other two channels can be reconstructed from that one. Don't want to go off on too much of a tangent here, but when a raw converter uses the term "highlight recovery" this is the process appropriately referenced. If none of the channels are clipped then no recovery is necessary. You need channel recovery -- your red channel has enough data to recovery the blue and green channels.

Of the different software available to do this job, Picture Code's Photo Ninja takes all the competition's heads off with a clean stroke including Adobe's.

So I converted your raw file through PN and then finished the JPEG conversion in Photoshop. There's just a hint of pastiness on the arm but her face is good:

Fair Skin

Joe

He's not only handsome--he's skilled too! Nice save Joe!!!

Thanks Derrell, but in this case I'd like to kick the compliment up one: Jim Christian at Picture Code is the man! I know for so many photogs the DAM capabilities in LR are essential and it seems an unnecessary kludge to try and integrate Photo Ninja into the workflow just to handle the raw conversion since LR is certainly good enough. Well, sometimes good enough isn't and then there's no substitute for the best -- Photo Ninja rocks!

Joe

 

[Ysarex]

Nice Joe! Thanks for taking a look at it. I guess that bottom line is that I need to meter better when shooting so I don't have this trouble in the future!

Thanks. Can't argue with Kathy -- there's no substitute for a good exposure. The instant you find yourself using editing to "fix" something, stop and smack yourself in the back of the head.

Joe