Skin tones?

[bennielou]

I agree with this this. Go for doing it right in the first place.
A BIG HOWEVER IS: I shoot weddings, and the light can change from shooting one side of the room to another, and this can happen in an instant. The lights are dim, and suddenly there is a blast of blue spotlight. A videographer can come in with his light mid cake, and you have to change in an instant. You might have bright pink uplights on one side of the room, and a cave on another. Shooting RAW and having great programs will save you. There is a reason film guys didn't shoot past the cake 20 years ago.

As far as using a grey card, that would be absolutely impossible during much of a wedding shoot.

For a static shoot, meter, and use a gray card. (I don't use a gray card because I rarely shoot static).

 

[o hey tyler]

I agree with this this. Go for doing it right in the first place.
A BIG HOWEVER IS: I shoot weddings, and the light can change from shooting one side of the room to another, and this can happen in an instant. The lights are dim, and suddenly there is a blast of blue spotlight. A videographer can come in with his light mid cake, and you have to change in an instant. You might have bright pink uplights on one side of the room, and a cave on another. Shooting RAW and having great programs will save you. There is a reason film guys didn't shoot past the cake 20 years ago.

As far as using a grey card, that would be absolutely impossible during much of a wedding shoot.

For a static shoot, meter, and use a gray card. (I don't use a gray card because I rarely shoot static).

I think you're the only one who mentioned weddings... So that's kind of irrelevant to the OP, no?

 

[bennielou]

I agree with this this. Go for doing it right in the first place.
A BIG HOWEVER IS: I shoot weddings, and the light can change from shooting one side of the room to another, and this can happen in an instant. The lights are dim, and suddenly there is a blast of blue spotlight. A videographer can come in with his light mid cake, and you have to change in an instant. You might have bright pink uplights on one side of the room, and a cave on another. Shooting RAW and having great programs will save you. There is a reason film guys didn't shoot past the cake 20 years ago.

As far as using a grey card, that would be absolutely impossible during much of a wedding shoot.

For a static shoot, meter, and use a gray card. (I don't use a gray card because I rarely shoot static).

I think you're the only one who mentioned weddings... So that's kind of irrelevant to the OP, no?

I was assuming that you would actually read my posts. I had several. The last referred to static shoots. As well as the first post.
The other post was for anyone who didn't do static posts. (Like Weddings).
Believe it or not, a lot of different types of shooters read here.
​

 

[o hey tyler]

28 day cycle blues?

It just seemed kind of odd that you brought up weddings, that's all. I just asked a question, but I see you were using it more as a long winded example. I just figured that would be kind of obvious to the OP. *shrug*

Sorry if I "cramped" your style.

 

[bennielou]

No, not that time of "month" as you figured women who challenged you would fall into.
I use "long winded" examples, because there are other photographers out there who might actually like to hear the how and whys of various situations regarding white balance from various photographers. My post was no longer than anyone elses.

And I posted on the topic of white balancing without having to resort to talk of female menstual cycles. Imagine that?

 

[camz]

For my style I tend to go a little bit on the overexposed side because I like the bright look. It helps with the skin tones as you lose some detail when you overexpose the subjects skin but don't go nuts with it. Besides doing it in SOOC, in post I adjust the WB alongside with the mid range levels like the "brightness" and "vibrance" in ACR or LR rather then "Exposure" and "Saturation".

If your shooting in manual, all you have to do is get one image right as your template in post and you can copy those settings from that image and batch it to achieve the consistency throughout the series.

It's tough to get it all right in camera especially when your not in a studio.

 

[bennielou]

For my style I tend to go a little bit on the overexposed side because I like the bright look. It helps with the skin tones as you lose some detail when you overexpose the subjects skin but don't go nuts with it. Besides doing it in SOOC, in post I adjust the WB alongside with the mid range levels like the "brightness" and "vibrance" in ACR or LR rather then "Exposure" and "Saturation".

If your shooting in manual, all you have to do is get one image right as your template in post and you can copy those settings from that image and batch it to achieve the consistency throughout the series.

It's tough to get it all right in camera especially when your not in a studio.

Overexposed red or blue is not going to help things. The OPs photo is overexposed orange.

 

[camz]

For my style I tend to go a little bit on the overexposed side because I like the bright look. It helps with the skin tones as you lose some detail when you overexpose the subjects skin but don't go nuts with it. Besides doing it in SOOC, in post I adjust the WB alongside with the mid range levels like the "brightness" and "vibrance" in ACR or LR rather then "Exposure" and "Saturation".

If your shooting in manual, all you have to do is get one image right as your template in post and you can copy those settings from that image and batch it to achieve the consistency throughout the series.

It's tough to get it all right in camera especially when your not in a studio.

Overexposed red or blue is not going to help things. The OPs photo is overexposed orange.

You know you lose detail towards white(highlight clipping) regardless of colour right?

I was explaining to the OP my workflow for consistency giving him/her the benefit of the doubt that he/she knows that the WB has to be addressed from the get go. I much prefer this rather then touching the skin with a digital brush. Just my preference.

 

[bennielou]

No. I don't know a thing about the basics. Tell me all about highlighting clipping.

The OPs question was about basic white balance, not highlight clipping on color chanels or any other clipping. Not exposure. Not airbrushing. Just white balance.

 

[camz]

The OPs question was about basic white balance, not highlight clipping on color chanels or any other clipping. Not exposure. Not airbrushing. Just white balance.

[FONT=&quot]The Op clearly is discussing skin tones in the title of the thread and in the body of the first post.

So, my question is how do you get good, consistant skin tones?! Any help would be appreciated.

WB is the probably the smart first step in adjusting skin tones but only associating WB with skin tones is an oversimplified approach, there are many ways to achieve this. [/FONT][FONT=&quot]I was simply explaining to him/her what my workflow was in getting there, that's why the mid range adjustments were mentioned by me.

[/FONT]

No. I don't know a thing about the basics. Tell me all about highlighting clipping.

For example, I'm Asian, Spanish, and German. If I were to do edits and increase vibrance or saturation on someone like me my face turns orange...sometimes a touch a pumpkin perhaps . What I try to do in SOOC is to slightly overexpose the subjects skin tones in order to go towards highlight clipping a tad...this will helps avoid the Jersey Shore looks on people.

In post I increase the mid range levels for the skin tones like "brightness" opposed to "Exposure" so I don't blow out the whole shot. This is what I was trying to explain to the op

 

[o hey tyler]

And I posted on the topic of white balancing without having to resort to talk of female menstual cycles. Imagine that?

Imagine that, you're a *****...?

 

[bennielou]

Oh, that is for sure. LOL.

 

[bennielou]

The OPs question was about basic white balance, not highlight clipping on color chanels or any other clipping. Not exposure. Not airbrushing. Just white balance.

[FONT=&quot]The Op clearly is discussing skin tones in the title of the thread and in the body of the first post.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]So, my question is how do you get good, consistant skin tones?! Any help would be appreciated. [/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]WB is the probably the smart first step in adjusting skin tones but only associating WB with skin tones is an oversimplified approach, there are many ways to achieve this. [/FONT][FONT=&quot]I was simply explaining to him/her what my workflow was in getting there, that's why the mid range adjustments were mentioned by me. [/FONT]

No. I don't know a thing about the basics. Tell me all about highlighting clipping.

For example, I'm Asian, Spanish, and German. If I were to do edits and increase vibrance or saturation on someone like me my face turns orange...sometimes a touch a pumpkin perhaps . What I try to do in SOOC is to slightly overexpose the subjects skin tones in order to go towards highlight clipping a tad...this will helps avoid the Jersey Shore looks on people.

In post I increase the mid range levels for the skin tones like "brightness" opposed to "Exposure" so I don't blow out the whole shot. This is what I was trying to explain to the op

Now that you explained it further, I agree. I'm just finishing up with a couple that has these crazy skin tones that are driving me crazy. He has blue undertones, and she loves self tanners. Put the two together and it's a nightmare. If I try to adjust for him, she turns into an Ump-a-loompa. If I adjust for her, he turns into a blueberry.

I will say that upping the exposure using curves DID helped a bit. But I finally had to run saturations on layers to get them even close to looking cohesive. I still wasn't happy with the outcome, but it's as close as I could get.

 

[camz]

The OPs question was about basic white balance, not highlight clipping on color chanels or any other clipping. Not exposure. Not airbrushing. Just white balance.

[FONT=&quot]The Op clearly is discussing skin tones in the title of the thread and in the body of the first post.[/FONT]



[FONT=&quot]WB is the probably the smart first step in adjusting skin tones but only associating WB with skin tones is an oversimplified approach, there are many ways to achieve this. [/FONT][FONT=&quot]I was simply explaining to him/her what my workflow was in getting there, that's why the mid range adjustments were mentioned by me. [/FONT]

No. I don't know a thing about the basics. Tell me all about highlighting clipping.

For example, I'm Asian, Spanish, and German. If I were to do edits and increase vibrance or saturation on someone like me my face turns orange...sometimes a touch a pumpkin perhaps . What I try to do in SOOC is to slightly overexpose the subjects skin tones in order to go towards highlight clipping a tad...this will helps avoid the Jersey Shore looks on people.

In post I increase the mid range levels for the skin tones like "brightness" opposed to "Exposure" so I don't blow out the whole shot. This is what I was trying to explain to the op

Now that you explained it further, I agree. I'm just finishing up with a couple that has these crazy skin tones that are driving me crazy. He has blue undertones, and she loves self tanners. Put the two together and it's a nightmare. If I try to adjust for him, she turns into an Ump-a-loompa. If I adjust for her, he turns into a blueberry.

I will say that upping the exposure using curves DID helped a bit. But I finally had to run saturations on layers to get them even close to looking cohesive. I still wasn't happy with the outcome, but it's as close as I could get.

You bring up a good point and I think most of us here have to unfortunately go through that. If slightly overexposing the the skin tones doesn't work, my approach after color correction is performed for the whole shot, I mask the skin separately in LR and then desaturate the skin tones - pain in the arse!

 

[bennielou]

Total pain in the arse! I wish there was an action for that. After the first twenty, I'm totally worn out!