Skin tones

I'm having a hard time keeping skin tones consistant.
It was recommended to me before to shoot with an 18% gray card but I think I did it improperly because for a while my images started coming up with too much of a purple cast.

It varies depending on the changing light, and this day was off and on cloudy/super bright.

Is there any hard and fast rules for making sure you get the skin tones' color exactly right all the time?

I shoot in raw. I often keep the thing on Auto wb on camera. Or when I have time I use the custom (Kelvin) setting to tune it using the LCD. Most often don't have time.

Too warm

Byte size: ZERO | Content warning: NOT AN IMAGE

Byte size: ZERO | Content warning: NOT AN IMAGE

Byte size: ZERO | Content warning: NOT AN IMAGE

Nah I just use AWB and sample off something white, or even just play with the sliders until I like what I see.

tim wrote in post #10787514
Nah I just use AWB and sample off something white, or even just play with the sliders until I like what I see.

If you are having WAY too much trouble, outsource it. I am looking into a place called Colorati to possibly do this. (I sound like a broken record)

I like the sound of slider playing

Unless you're suffering from colorcast caused by weird walls, skin tones are usually what they are. If you don't like them you can "tan" somebody up a bit by using the saturation sliders. (red & orange).

For severe cases, with LightRoom you can use a color brush and apply a very slight dark-yellow tint. I often do this for Caucasians when shooting in the winter months.

Your skin tones in the samples look fine to me.

Maybe my monitor is tuned wrong....got it set at 6500k

Look fine here also from those samples

Easy way to remove color cast.

Go into photoshop CS.

Duplicate photo into new layer (Ctrl+J)
While on "top layer" (just created), go to filter>blur>average
Set top to overlay and play with opacity untill you get the desired result.

Viva-photography wrote in post #10789103
Easy way to remove color cast.

Go into photoshop CS.

Duplicate photo into new layer (Ctrl+J)
While on "top layer" (just created), go to filter>blur>average
Set top to overlay and play with opacity untill you get the desired result.

Thanks, I'll try that out. Hey cool it works.

Almost all basic sliders in lightroom affects skin tones. Of course, saturation/hue/luminan​ce does, but so does everything else like exposure, recovery, blacks, white, fill, brightness, contrast, clarity, and tone curve. If you have two copies of the exact same picture with the exact same WB settings but different processing, you'll have two different sets of skin tones. Therefore, if you want consistent skin tones, then it takes a lot of individual image colour correction. This is why I don't edit in batches as it can easily give inaccurate skin tones. This is also why I process in a neutral saturation, low contrast style. My default import saturation level preset is only at +2, and my blacks is set to 0.

And then to take it a step further, I didn't know how BAD I was processing skin tones until I got a professional colour critical monitor. It looked great on my old cheap but good DELL IPS monitor, but it was deficient in reds so I ended up processing skin with too much red in them. So accuracy starts with your hardware.

picturecrazy wrote in post #10792375
Almost all basic sliders in lightroom affects skin tones. Of course, saturation/hue/luminan​ce does, but so does everything else like exposure, recovery, blacks, white, fill, brightness, contrast, clarity, and tone curve. If you have two copies of the exact same picture with the exact same WB settings but different processing, you'll have two different sets of skin tones. Therefore, if you want consistent skin tones, then it takes a lot of individual image colour correction. This is why I don't edit in batches as it can easily give inaccurate skin tones. This is also why I process in a neutral saturation, low contrast style. My default import saturation level preset is only at +2, and my blacks is set to 0.

And then to take it a step further, I didn't know how BAD I was processing skin tones until I got a professional colour critical monitor. It looked great on my old cheap but good DELL IPS monitor, but it was deficient in reds so I ended up processing skin with too much red in them. So accuracy starts with your hardware.

Would you recommend the brand monitor you got?

Karl, I'm no genius at this yet, but I struggled with trying to change WB settings, using grey cards, etc until I read that Jasmine Star uses AWB & I quit fighting that battle. Been pretty satisified in most cases.

Michelle Brooks Photography wrote in post #10793386
Would you recommend the brand monitor you got?

I use the NEC LCD2690WUXi, which has been replaced with the LCD2690WUXi2. The LCD2490WUXi2 is probably the best one to jump into the critical colour accurate world with. Buy it with the "spectraview" package and you'll be singing when you see how well your prints match up to your screen. I thought it was good before... until I upgraded. But you MUST get the Spectraview package to calibrate it accurately. Otherwise it's no better than using something like an Apple cinema display with a spyder.

picturecrazy wrote in post #10793468
I use the NEC LCD2690WUXi, which has been replaced with the LCD2690WUXi2. The LCD2490WUXi2 is probably the best one to jump into the critical colour accurate world with. Buy it with the "spectraview" package and you'll be singing when you see how well your prints match up to your screen. I thought it was good before... until I upgraded. But you MUST get the Spectraview package to calibrate it accurately. Otherwise it's no better than using something like an Apple cinema display with a spyder.

Thanks, Lloyd!

Bugger, I was hoping for a batch solution.

Oh the agony of thousand + image editing...