Red skin tone

[Spots]

Hi,
No matter what settings I use, use a flash or not, be indoors or out, low light, high light, etc, my blond haired, blue-eyed brother-in-law always photographs with a bright red tint to his skin. Can someone please tell me why this happens and what I can do about it?...I'm guessing it has something to do with the melanin in his skin but I probably wrong as usual.

TIA
:.Spots

[DavidW]

What are you doing for white balance, and how are you judging the colour? For flash, the flash white balance should be fine, though you can always shoot a WhiBal (http://www.whibal.com) or other reference to make sure (either use Custom White Balance, or as a reference for RAW processing).

If you're judging the colour tint on an uncalibrated monitor,that means very little; you may be way off. Colorimeter based screen calibration (Monaco OPTIX XR or similar) would be best, but if you can't afford that, download the manufacturer's profile for the monitor, make sure settings such as the colour temperature are at the default, and then use Adobe Gamma.


If you have a printer for which you have a profile for the ink and paper combination you're using, you could try a print and see what you think about the results. If that shows more like the colour you want, that indicates it is your monitor at fault. Accurate post-processing is almost impossible without a calibrated monitor.



David

[PhotosGuy]

If you aren't using RAW, then I suggest you forget about the cams AutoWB. Look at what happened to the colors here, especially the gray patch in the 2nd pic:
Gray card: Why your meter may be lying to you! I started out to check one thing & learned about another.
http://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthread.php?t=54281

[J Rabin]

I always thought it is due to near IR light since most digital cameras see near IR. Happens most paler skin people and babies and especially on those folks under flash. Film does not have this problem.

Davis and Willmore, in their How-to-Wow CS2 book have an excellent 20-second fix that I use daily. That saturation "unifying skins tones fix" has made me more print money per week than the cost of the book.

Here is SmugMug's take on the subject:
http://www.smugmug.com/help/red-skin-tones
Learned about this from an Ob-Gyn who had this problem shooting newborns.

I can't verify the accuracy of their claims, but they nailed the problem.
Jack

[Spots]

DavidW--Have used every WB the camera offers including custom as per instructions. No difference between each except the degree of red. The problem does not seem to be moniter specific as I have viewed them on many, and yes, my monitor is calibrated using Adobe gamma. I do not print my own (I have a black laser) and have sent them to several printers and still the same. Thank you.

PhotosGuy-- I shoot RAW only, and as I said before, I have tried all WB settings. The best results I can get is lessen to pink and still look anywhere close to natural. I'll read that link. Thank you.

J Rabin-- I read the link I can see the differences in each photo but the fixes just don't look natural, better but not natural. I'll pick up a copy of that book. Thank you.

:.Spots

[J Rabin]

...I can see the differences in each photo but the fixes just don't look natural, better but not natural.

Spots. I agree, but better is better, yes? Pragmatically, that's all that matters. There is no perfection. Compromise with tools we have. We pixel peep too much, and people like it if image looks OK. Natural? Photographers appreciate "natural" more than subjects, viewers, or customers. I just fix and move on.

This is NOT a white balance issue, it is just a fact of the digital medium. I consider going back to film for some flash work with Astia, or other lower saturated films.

Jack

[PhotosGuy]

it is just a fact of the digital medium. I've not had that problem to the extent that you seem to. Maybe a bit in the 1st link which was in open shade, but I may have upped the saturation.
http://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthread.php?t=122297
Not here, though with strobe:
http://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthread.php?t=128857&goto=newpost
And even less here:
http://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthread.php?t=117068&goto=newpost
Maybe I'm just lucky? ;)

[J Rabin]

I've not had that problem to the extent that you seem to.
Yes. imagine it depends more on subjects with surface blood vessels in pale skin reflecting the near-IR. And it occurs whether using flash or not, though it's more evident with flash.
If it's not a problem for your subjects, that's a good thing. Jack

[Croasdail]

If you are using Photoshop, just go into color correction and increase yellow and blue... works everytime. These work in opposites so if you use one slider going to the right, take the other slider the other direction to about the same amount. I typically leave the magenta slider alone. Usually the values are in the 5 to 15 range... with 10 being usually where I settle. Also remember to adjust your light levels and this will impact amount of yellow in the image. As you bring mid tones down... so will the yellow levels. Then go and correct your colors.

As to the RAW thing... personally I find it to be a huge waste of time and disk space. Even with Large\Fine Jpeg, your monitor and printer are throwing away a lot of the color information. I know lots swear by it... and maybe if I did a lot of landscapes or something I would use it... but for what I do it is too much of a resource hog. There isn't anything you can do with a RAW file you can't do with a JPEG... just my opinion - I can be and am often wrong. Cheers.

[condyk]

There isn't anything you can do with a RAW file you can't do with a JPEG... just my opinion - I can be and am often wrong. Cheers.

I'm rather old and not very high tech so can't justify what I say but having processed with JPeg initially and now RAW I have to say that RAW is far superior to my eye. Of course, where I shooting for newsprint or the web I frankly wouldn't bother with anything other than a quick check in JPeg.

[tim]

Maybe he's just red? Best post a picture for us to look at.

[chtgrubbs]

There has been a long and involved discussion on the topic among portrait and fashion photographers on the Rob Galbraith forum: http://forums.robgalbraith.com/showflat.php?Cat=0&Number=390672&an=0&page=1#390672

One of the posters gave a remedy using an adjustment layer utilizing the Channel Mixer. I have tried it and it seems to give the best corrective results so far.