Skin tones ?

This is one of these photos where I just struggle to get good skin tones - the original is way too red.

How does this edit look and would you do something different ?

IMAGE LINK: https://www.flickr.com …77380157@N06/15​925745890/

This is something that i often struggle with as well.

That being said, i hope someone will post with an absolute answer.

What i do in these situations is...

If in Lightroom, i will try the different WB presets. I start with the global WB adjustment settings and see what looks best. I would start with Daylight (even though it is not really a total daylight shot). This should get you very close. I would then look at the tint slider. If the skin is too green i would bump up the slider 1 or 2, If the skin is too magenta, go down 1 or 2. With the tint slider a little can be a lot.

If in Photoshop. I would use the eye dropper and keep clicking on different areas of the face to see what colors are actually there. When i do this to your image, i get mostly blue, purple and green. A little bit of orange and red, but mostly cooler colors. Looking at a color wheel, we know the opposite colors to blue, purple and green would be yellow or golden. You can use a photo filter adjustment layer and scroll through the colors to see what makes the skin a more natural tone. For me, i like "red". The warming filters are close, but still leave a green cast. I stack the two filters red/warm 85 to get the look that i like on your image.

A few things to do to help in the future would be to use a WB card to find the proper WB while in the field. Or better yet an x-rite color passport checker.
If you use a monitor color calibrator, knowing that what you see is what you get helps. Even a cheap colormunki smile at under $100 will work. A cheap vs an expensive for the most part is that a cheap one adjusts color and a higher model adjusts color and brightness/contrast. That make a nice difference on the printing side.

The cyan is very strong in this image and judging from the long shadows, it looks like it should have a much warmer tone. Since the new format doesn't allow us to indicate whether or not image editing is allowed, I took a stab at editing your image to reduce the cool tone. If you want me to delete my edit, please let me know and I will.

bob_r wrote in post #17437678
The cyan is very strong in this image and judging from the long shadows, it looks like it should have a much warmer tone. Since the new format doesn't allow us to indicate whether or not image editing is allowed, I took a stab at editing your image to reduce the cool tone. If you want me to delete my edit, please let me know and I will.

Great edit. And yes, there was a Cyan cast to the overall picture the OP posted.

bob_r's edit is much more accurate.

amamba, if your image looks even close, the first thing you need to do is calibrate your monitor. a Macintosh has a built in utility to do this by eye, not sure about windows.

Second, the woman is wearing a black jacket, that is a great tool for setting white balance in an image. With one click of the WB eyedropper tool you can get really really close to a perfect color correction. Even the grey rocks could be used to get in the right ballpark.

Third, you need to look around for "color correction by the numbers". There are certain values of each color (RGB) that each skin type should have, it's pretty scientific, to the point that someone with a lot of experience can color correct an image with a black and white monitor.

fourth, you might be color blind. not trying to be a jerk. check this out: http://www.xrite.com/o​nline-color-test-challenge

Another option is to create a brush in LR to desaturate the skin a little bit to get rid of those harsher colors.

I kind of do what Baller said above except I use a brush to change the color temperature of just the face. LR brushes are fantastic if you need to do just a simple color change on part of an image.
By going warmer with the tones on a brush of just the face, you can impact only the skin tones instead of the global image. The good news is, you can play to your hearts content since LR is non destructive.

sirquack wrote in post #17439113
I kind of do what Baller said above except I use a brush to change the color temperature of just the face. LR brushes are fantastic if you need to do just a simple color change on part of an image.
By going warmer with the tones on a brush of just the face, you can impact only the skin tones instead of the global image. The good news is, you can play to your hearts content since LR is non destructive.

Exactly what I was going to suggest. I've done it a few times when using fill-flash outdoors without a gel during late-afternoon hours.