ACR and Skin tones challenge

[Zeee]

I guess this can be open to LR as well as the engines are the same. What do you to get great skin tones. Please state which camera you use and an example.

--

Weaseling out of things is important to learn! It's what separates us from the animals. Except the weasel.

Homer Simpson

 

[Ronny Harris]

Here is a tutorial that describes what I do in Photoshop CS5. Even though I remain in RGB, I look at the CMYK values to get the skin tones in proper range.

http://www.graphicconnectionkc.com/skin-tone-correction.html

In ACR or LR, you can't observe the CMYK readout so you will have to look at the RGB readout which I find is not as helpful for me. (Hopefully CS6/ACR or LR4 has corrected this) Anyway, in ACR or LR, making Red 20% more than Blue and Green close to the middle is a good starting point for average Caucasians. For color changes in ACR/LR, use the Temp, Tint, and HSL sliders to adjust the colors. Don't forget that luminous changes affect the colors also. For the final tweak, though, your eyes are the best guide, in my opinion.

Ronny

 

[exdeejjjaaaa]

What do you to get great skin tones.

use an alternative raw converter, that simple.

 

[Zeee]

Here is a tutorial that describes what I do in Photoshop CS5. Even though I remain in RGB, I look at the CMYK values to get the skin tones in proper range.

http://www.graphicconnectionkc.com/skin-tone-correction.html

In ACR or LR, you can't observe the CMYK readout so you will have to look at the RGB readout which I find is not as helpful for me. (Hopefully CS6/ACR or LR4 has corrected this) Anyway, in ACR or LR, making Red 20% more than Blue and Green close to the middle is a good starting point for average Caucasians. For color changes in ACR/LR, use the Temp, Tint, and HSL sliders to adjust the colors. Don't forget that luminous changes affect the colors also. For the final tweak, though, your eyes are the best guide, in my opinion.

Ronny

Thanks. That is good info. I got a tip from someone. He imported DPP picture styles into ACR and uses landscape or faithful. Two sets of settings.

A. Option #1
1. Camera faithful
2. -10 clarity
3. 10 vibrance
4. -10 saturation

B. Option #2
1. Camera landscape (trust me)!
2. -10 clarity
3. Negative vibrance, between 10 and 25
4. Saturation 0.

This is with using Option 2 with vibrance at -28.



I like ACR but I find the skin tones very yellow on Adobe standard. I made it a little cooler on purpose.

--

Weaseling out of things is important to learn! It's what separates us from the animals. Except the weasel.

Homer Simpson

 

[DUMB4SS]

I do not find adobe standard to be any good for skin tones. To me (D3) they always look magenta whatever I do.

I do find the latest Nikon profiles to be excellent, but it does seem to vary by camera.
--
Never forget that you are unique,Just like everyone else.

 

[Sailor Blue]

Even when using a X-Rite ColorChecker Passport I'm not really happy with skin tones; they are faithful, just not pleasing. A quick adjustment of the White Balance and/or Tone is generally all that is needed.

If you want to get anal about it then read "Skin" by Lee Varis and Rick Sammon. You will find information on the relation ship of the RGB values for various shades of skin.

http://www.amazon.com/Skin-Complete-Digitally-Photographing-Retouching/dp/0470592125/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1330824581&sr=8-1

 

[Zeee]

Even when using a X-Rite ColorChecker Passport I'm not really happy with skin tones; they are faithful, just not pleasing. A quick adjustment of the White Balance and/or Tone is generally all that is needed.

If you want to get anal about it then read "Skin" by Lee Varis and Rick Sammon. You will find information on the relation ship of the RGB values for various shades of skin.

http://www.amazon.com/Skin-Complete-Digitally-Photographing-Retouching/dp/0470592125/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1330824581&sr=8-1

Thanks for the link Sailor. Not sure how much blue has to do with the Passport but I find blue objects completely off form the original subject.

This is DPP on faithful. Look at colour of the sleeve of my wife's top to the left. Teal in colour and we both confirmed it was very close to the actual colour.



Here is with the passport. The blues are so rich almost comic book to coin a phrase I have heard around here.



--

Weaseling out of things is important to learn! It's what separates us from the animals. Except the weasel.

Homer Simpson

 

[Toermalijn]

On my screen, the first picture looks right.

The second one is rich in blue.

Even when using a X-Rite ColorChecker Passport I'm not really happy with skin tones; they are faithful, just not pleasing. A quick adjustment of the White Balance and/or Tone is generally all that is needed.

If you want to get anal about it then read "Skin" by Lee Varis and Rick Sammon. You will find information on the relation ship of the RGB values for various shades of skin.

http://www.amazon.com/Skin-Complete-Digitally-Photographing-Retouching/dp/0470592125/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1330824581&sr=8-1

Thanks for the link Sailor. Not sure how much blue has to do with the Passport but I find blue objects completely off form the original subject.

This is DPP on faithful. Look at colour of the sleeve of my wife's top to the left. Teal in colour and we both confirmed it was very close to the actual colour.



Here is with the passport. The blues are so rich almost comic book to coin a phrase I have heard around here.



--

Weaseling out of things is important to learn! It's what separates us from the animals. Except the weasel.

Homer Simpson

 

[Zeee]

Thanks for the reply. My screen is calibrated using Spyder 3 Elite and see the same thing. Kinda surprised as I had heard so many good things about Passport.

--

Weaseling out of things is important to learn! It's what separates us from the animals. Except the weasel.

Homer Simpson

 

[Toermalijn]

Ronny, in rgb you have to look for the reds for skintone correction.

http://www.varis.com/StepByStep/RGB_SkinTone/RGB_SkinTone.html

post on retouch pro:

"
v.bampton
Member

Join Date: Nov 2004
Location: Southampton
Posts: 78

We have a portrait and wedding studio, and whilst there are benefits to correcting in CMYK, we do almost all of our adjustments in RGB. Because of the difference in the size of the gamut, converting to CMYK and then back to AdobeRGB for our lab does affect some of the colours. If you're concerned about watching the CMYK numbers, then make sure your info palette will show RGB and CMYK, and the same rules will apply. There's also a speed factor - I don't have time to convert everything back and forth when I'm working on hundreds of images a week.

I've got perfectly good results using RGB, sometimes boosting the saturation, more often just adjusting the red and yellow slightly (highlights and slight midtones in levels or curves) to give a healthy warm glow. Most of it I have set up as actions, so whilst we do retouch every image we sell, it's usually only minor tweaks that we need to do manually."

Here is a tutorial that describes what I do in Photoshop CS5. Even though I remain in RGB, I look at the CMYK values to get the skin tones in proper range.

http://www.graphicconnectionkc.com/skin-tone-correction.html

In ACR or LR, you can't observe the CMYK readout so you will have to look at the RGB readout which I find is not as helpful for me. (Hopefully CS6/ACR or LR4 has corrected this) Anyway, in ACR or LR, making Red 20% more than Blue and Green close to the middle is a good starting point for average Caucasians. For color changes in ACR/LR, use the Temp, Tint, and HSL sliders to adjust the colors. Don't forget that luminous changes affect the colors also. For the final tweak, though, your eyes are the best guide, in my opinion.

Ronny

 

[DUMB4SS]

to create your passport profiles, they are a little better, but almost identical to the ACR4. profiles in lightroom.

I still don't find them at all accurate though, as you have shown in the image above and depending on the camera you use, much prefer the newest camera specific profiles supplied with lightroom.
--
Never forget that you're unique, Just like everyone else.

 

[Ronny Harris]

Some good information there, Toermalijn. Thanks.

Ronny

 

[Zeee]

http://www.varis.com/StepByStep/RGB_SkinTone/RGB_SkinTone.html

post on retouch pro:

"
v.bampton
Member

Join Date: Nov 2004
Location: Southampton
Posts: 78

We have a portrait and wedding studio, and whilst there are benefits to correcting in CMYK, we do almost all of our adjustments in RGB. Because of the difference in the size of the gamut, converting to CMYK and then back to AdobeRGB for our lab does affect some of the colours. If you're concerned about watching the CMYK numbers, then make sure your info palette will show RGB and CMYK, and the same rules will apply. There's also a speed factor - I don't have time to convert everything back and forth when I'm working on hundreds of images a week.

I've got perfectly good results using RGB, sometimes boosting the saturation, more often just adjusting the red and yellow slightly (highlights and slight midtones in levels or curves) to give a healthy warm glow. Most of it I have set up as actions, so whilst we do retouch every image we sell, it's usually only minor tweaks that we need to do manually."

Here is a tutorial that describes what I do in Photoshop CS5. Even though I remain in RGB, I look at the CMYK values to get the skin tones in proper range.

http://www.graphicconnectionkc.com/skin-tone-correction.html

In ACR or LR, you can't observe the CMYK readout so you will have to look at the RGB readout which I find is not as helpful for me. (Hopefully CS6/ACR or LR4 has corrected this) Anyway, in ACR or LR, making Red 20% more than Blue and Green close to the middle is a good starting point for average Caucasians. For color changes in ACR/LR, use the Temp, Tint, and HSL sliders to adjust the colors. Don't forget that luminous changes affect the colors also. For the final tweak, though, your eyes are the best guide, in my opinion.

Ronny

Thanks for this info.

--

Weaseling out of things is important to learn! It's what separates us from the animals. Except the weasel.

Homer Simpson