Challenging color temp & skin tone.

when shooting indoors and col temp is around 2k, auto WB obviously gives very red/orange balance, has anyone else found that correcting the WB by shooting a white card in these conditions can wreak havoc with skin tones. I find certain parts of the skin (usually the lighter tones) turn very pink and this is very unflattering while other tonal ranges are ok. I tend to make a compromise which still leaves the image warmer than ideal.

Just realised this should really be in 'Talk about Photography' sorry

My strong suggestion - use a standard 18% gray card (one that is truly designed for the purpose) as a white balance reference. White cards can easily be overexposed when using them in a scene as a reference, while the gray card will probably not be either over- or under-exposed. That makes a huge difference when using it as a white balance reference.

Shoot in RAW and include a gray card in one test shot. Then, in the beginning of the RAW conversion process, click on the gray card with the white balance "eyedropper" tool. You will see a Kelvin value that is a result of the calculation. Transfer that number to the rest of the shots taken in the same light and do a batch RAW conversion and voila - you'll have just about the best possible white balance correction.

It is a fact that different light sources have a different color distribution in them. Not all light sources have all the colors in them. Thus, even though you do a white balance correction, all the colors in an image may not be right with some lighting sources. I am planning on doing some research into the different types of lighting sources and the color distribution in them.

Thanks for the reply Skip, do you know what, the thought had just popped in to my head about overexposing the white card just a few minutes ago, I'm glad you confirmed it.
I shoot RAW pretty much always, mainly to give me control over WB but I'll definitely get myself a grey card now. Interseting last point, maybe this could explain the patchiness of skin tones sometimes.
Cheers
Andy

And a colour temp. of 2000 K is pretty far down - candlelight or open flame, maybe, which may get mixed with another light source for mixed lighting headaches.