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Portrait skin tones & white balance

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MashaMo

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Dear all,

I nedd your comments and correction please for white balance and skin tones for this shot, I like to use (K) values, I did this shot at sunset in location with soft box and golden reflector I used about 7500K for white balance, what is most of you wolud use in that shot?

Regards
Mo

http://www.usefilm.com/photographer/79796.html
 
If you shot RAW then do two seperate white balance conversions, one for the background and one for the skin tone. This way you get best of both worlds.

It seems you missed the focus on the this shot though? The necklace is sharper than the eyes...
 
That is a very nice shot. It is taken at sunset; you might consider warming it up a bit. Try making a selection of the sky background. The Magic Wand would do and use Yellow in Hue and Saturation and Selective Colorto warm up the sky. Also, you could make a selection of the girls face and hair area and warm up the skin tones a bit. I used Yellow in Hue/Sat to do that.

k
 
Each piece of software reports a different temp. If I shoot raw at daylight 5500K, ACR reports it "as shot" as 4900K.

I say forget the color temp numbers and adjust to what looks good. The only numbers that you can rely on are the CMY numbers for skin tones.
--
Gary
http://garyjean.zenfolio.com/
 
I tried going the other way, reducing the yellows a little. I clicked on the white of her eye with the neutral gray eyedropper in curves, with this result
c 31/31% unchanged
m 61/59% essentially unchanged
y 82/76% without sunset mood, I might push further, below 70%.
k 17/16% essentially unchanged

You have a lot of leeway with the sunset mood, and the original warm color balance isn't bad at all.
--
My 2¢ worth
My still camera 'evolution' 1950-present:
http://www.pbase.com/filer/image/49099880/original

Joe Filer
Mahomet, IL
http://www.pbase.com/filer
 
That is a lot of yellow, almost asien skin tone! I would go no more then C31, M61, Y70, K 17 on the yellow.
--
Alfred
 
I think your image is balanced relatively well, I do read a little bit to much yellow in the skin tones. Measuring the skin on the cheek I read C24 M51 Y67 K1 and I lowered the yellow down to 60 to make it look good in my opinion.
--
Alfred
 
I think the OP's looks good, as does your slightly cooler version. Some people might like the original even warmer.

In either case, the range of tones is well balanced and natural looking.

Which one is accurate to the actual scene? Everyone could give it a try and likely none would be accurate. Many would look good though.

--
Gary
http://garyjean.zenfolio.com/
 


Went back to the image, reduced the cyan in the skin by doing a colour probe (which should be embbed in the jpg) on the neutral tones of the skin (something without black in it). Added a photo warming filter for the background set the mode to overlay and reduced the opacity to taste then masked it off the skin. Sharpened the eyes and blurred the necklace highlight.
 
I'm in the process of learning colour balance.

Id you want to use CMY numbers to adjust colour balance, do you need to change the image to CMYK or can this be done by looking at the info pallet while still in SRGB/aRGB modes?

-Frankie
joe filer said:
I tried going the other way, reducing the yellows a little. I clicked on the > white of her eye with the neutral gray eyedropper in curves, with this > result
c 31/31% unchanged
m 61/59% essentially unchanged
y 82/76% without sunset mood, I might push further, below 70%.
k 17/16% essentially unchanged
Click to expand...
 
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