Flesh

Usual Suspect wrote:

I’ve heard that skin tones are the most difficult aspect of portraits to get right. My subjects’ skin looks either red or yellow or orange. I’ve been sliding hue and saturation sliders in the Hue/Saturation dialog for more time than I care to admit, and still cannot get good skin tone.
Any pointers? Suggestions? On-line primers?

One thing that I don’t understand: when I slide the yellow hue to the high end (max value) the skin goes very greenish. But when I choose "greens" and slide the hue slider, there is no change. Why is this?

Photoshop CS (v 8.0) Mac

Use white balance and get it right.

—
john mcwilliams

In article ,
Usual Suspect wrote:

I’ve heard that skin tones are the most difficult aspect of portraits to get right. My subjects’ skin looks either red or yellow or orange. I’ve been sliding hue and saturation sliders in the Hue/Saturation dialog for more time than I care to admit, and still cannot get good skin tone.
Any pointers? Suggestions? On-line primers?

You’re using the wrong tool for the job. Hue/Saturation makes global changes to color everywhere, but without precision. Learn how to use the Curves command, and you will be able to make any change you like, great or subtle, to any tonal range or range of color you choose.

—
Photography, kink, polyamory, shareware, and more: all at http://www.xeromag.com/franklin.html

Usual Suspect wrote:

I’ve heard that skin tones are the most difficult aspect of portraits to get right. My subjects’ skin looks either red or yellow or orange. I’ve been sliding hue and saturation sliders in the Hue/Saturation dialog for more time than I care to admit, and still cannot get good skin tone.

Any pointers? Suggestions? On-line primers?

One thing that I don’t understand: when I slide the yellow hue to the high end (max value) the skin goes very greenish. But when I choose "greens" and slide the hue slider, there is no change. Why is this?
Photoshop CS (v 8.0) Mac

Thanks,

Oh man, if ever there was a job crying out for LAB colour mode, this is it. I’ve gotten hooked on it lately. It’s absolutely incredible, and so powerfull.
There’s tons of tuts for it on the hinterweb.

Alternatively, you would probably benefit from white-balancing your camera before shooting the portrait.

"Usual Suspect" wrote in message

I’ve heard that skin tones are the most difficult aspect of portraits to get
right. My subjects’ skin looks either red or yellow or orange. I’ve been sliding hue and saturation sliders in the Hue/Saturation dialog for more time
than I care to admit, and still cannot get good skin tone.
Any pointers? Suggestions? On-line primers?

One thing that I don’t understand: when I slide the yellow hue to the high end (max value) the skin goes very greenish. But when I choose "greens" and
slide the hue slider, there is no change. Why is this?

Photoshop CS (v 8.0) Mac

Thanks,
—
Al, the usual

yes CURVES is your friend
ask Mike Russell
he has good tutorials for this

Alternatively, you would probably benefit from white-balancing your camera before shooting the portrait.

I didn’t realize it, but my camera has the capability of setting custom white balance. Do I need to take a standard "gray card" with me to shoot in each lighting condition? Or is there another way to adjust wb?

Thanks,
—
Al, the usual

On Mon, 18 Jun 2007 15:49:23 GMT, Usual Suspect
wrote:

Do I need to take a standard "gray card" with me to shoot in each lighting condition? Or is there another way to adjust wb?
Thanks,

Yes, you do need to

Dave

On Mon, 18 Jun 2007 20:20:55 +0200, Dave wrote:

On Mon, 18 Jun 2007 15:49:23 GMT, Usual Suspect
wrote:

Do I need to take a standard "gray card" with me to shoot in each lighting condition? Or is there another way to adjust wb?
Thanks,

Yes, you do need to

Dave

Sorry, I replied without reading your question completely. There is other ways, specially if there is something gray or any other neutral color in the photo.
That is my way of working – no wb cards for sale in SA:-)

Otherwise, simply shoot something white and set your camera’s wb accordingly.

Dave

There is other ways, specially if there is something gray or any other neutral color in the photo.

Gray or neutral…

Otherwise, simply shoot something white and set your camera’s wb accordingly.

White…

Now I’m confused.

My camera has one manual WB setting. You push a button when it’s aimed at your calibrating color. What is that color?

Thanks,
—
Al, the usual

"Usual Suspect" wrote in message

There is other ways, specially if there is something gray or any other neutral color in the photo.

Gray or neutral…

Otherwise, simply shoot something white and set your camera’s wb accordingly.

White…

Now I’m confused.

My camera has one manual WB setting. You push a button when it’s aimed at your calibrating color. What is that color?

Thanks,
—
Al, the usual

Let me guess. You use a 5D?
Me too and it’s a right pain in the butt.

Peeved me so much I bought a Fuji S5 and so far, it’s looking much better.

—
Posted via a free Usenet account from http://www.teranews.com

Usual Suspect wrote:

I’ve heard that skin tones are the most difficult aspect of portraits to get right. My subjects’ skin looks either red or yellow or orange. I’ve been sliding hue and saturation sliders in the Hue/Saturation dialog for more time than I care to admit, and still cannot get good skin tone.
Any pointers? Suggestions? On-line primers?

Here’s something new you can try, using your current method of Hue/Sat sliders. Create an eyedrop sample point on a representative skin tone or two, and set the eyedropper to HSB mode. Then use the Hue Sat dialog as you did before. Adjust the hue until the H value of your sample point is 19 degrees. Then adjust the saturation to a value of 40. Ignore the brightness. This will put you smack in the middle of an average skin tone, and it will work well for all races.

One thing that I don’t understand: when I slide the yellow hue to the high end (max value) the skin goes very greenish. But when I choose "greens" and slide the hue slider, there is no change. Why is this?

Skin tones are closer to yellow than to green. BTW – the color you select in the Hue/Sat dropdown is not that important. Once you have selected any color, click on the image to determine the color you want to change. In this case, that would be near one of your sample points.

That should keep you busy for a while 🙂 There is more to learn, once you are comfortable with adjusting Hue and Sat. As Katwoman and Tacit mention, curves is probably the most important tool you can use for this purpose. After you start to feel limited by Hue/Sat, give it a try. Play around with the curves a bit until you get the Hue and Saturation where they need to be, without changing other colors in the image. Don’t use the RGB combined curve for big moves because it modifies hue and saturation in an uncontrolled way. To see where you should be changing the curve, click and drag near a skin tone. Fat Sam’s Lab mode can be very useful for this sort of thing, particularly if your image has a strong and very uniform color cast.

Mike Russell – www.curvemeister.com

On Tue, 19 Jun 2007 07:07:30 GMT, Usual Suspect
wrote:

There is other ways, specially if there is something gray or any other neutral color in the photo.

Gray or neutral…

Otherwise, simply shoot something white and set your camera’s wb accordingly.

White…

Now I’m confused.

My camera has one manual WB setting. You push a button when it’s aimed at your calibrating color. What is that color?

Thanks,

not Gray or Neutral but Gray or any other neutral color…

Neutral in this sense is when your RGB colors are the same as in 255 255 255…168 168 168…- 0 0 0 for Red Green & Blue.

You can set your camera’s white balance by taking a shot of something white (not necessarily milk white) filling the screen.

Do this exercise, (even without doing your cameras’ wb) and you will understand more of what I said:

Take a picture of anything with a few different colors in it. Make sure that there is something gray in the same photo. (white & black can also be used)

Open this photo in Photoshop.
Do a CNTL/L or CNTRL/M
If the neutral object is gray, click on ‘sample in image to set gray point’ and click on the gray object in the photo. Immediately the colors in the photo will be closer to original.

Dave

On 2007-06-19 05:34:16 -0300, Mike Russell said:

Usual Suspect wrote:

I’ve heard that skin tones are the most difficult aspect of portraits to get right. My subjects’ skin looks either red or yellow or orange. I’ve been sliding hue and saturation sliders in the Hue/Saturation dialog for more time than I care to admit, and still cannot get good skin tone.
Any pointers? Suggestions? On-line primers?

Here’s something new you can try, using your current method of Hue/Sat sliders. Create an eyedrop sample point on a representative skin tone or two, and set the eyedropper to HSB mode. Then use the Hue Sat dialog as you did before. Adjust the hue until the H value of your sample point is 19 degrees. Then adjust the saturation to a value of 40. Ignore the brightness. This will put you smack in the middle of an average skin tone, and it will work well for all races.

One thing that I don’t understand: when I slide the yellow hue to the high end (max value) the skin goes very greenish. But when I choose "greens" and slide the hue slider, there is no change. Why is this?

Skin tones are closer to yellow than to green. BTW – the color you select in the Hue/Sat dropdown is not that important. Once you have selected any color, click on the image to determine the color you want to change. In this case, that would be near one of your sample points.
That should keep you busy for a while 🙂 There is more to learn, once you are comfortable with adjusting Hue and Sat. As Katwoman and Tacit mention, curves is probably the most important tool you can use for this purpose. After you start to feel limited by Hue/Sat, give it a try. Play around with the curves a bit until you get the Hue and Saturation where they need to be, without changing other colors in the image. Don’t use the RGB combined curve for big moves because it modifies hue and saturation in an uncontrolled way. To see where you should be changing the curve, click and drag near a skin tone. Fat Sam’s Lab mode can be very useful for this sort of thing, particularly if your image has a strong and very uniform color cast.

Mike Russell – www.curvemeister.com

Neutrals should be a snap to get in photoshop… if the photographer used a grayscale or macbeth card.
other than that hope for a natural white, black or mid gray. Usually most photos don’t have these except when you watch a tutorial… for some reason it always has all three to match neutrals, how convenient. —
Welcome to Papa Joe’s

Let me guess. You use a 5D?

No, a Canon A95. I’m sure there’s at least one or two other models that have one manual WB option… (c:

Me too and it’s a right pain in the butt.

It’s just… not clear to me what to shoot to calibrate it.

Peeved me so much I bought a Fuji S5 and so far, it’s looking much better.

Be happy!
—
Al, the usual

On Jun 19, 1:07 am, Usual Suspect wrote:

There is other ways, specially if there is something gray or any other neutral color in the photo.

Gray or neutral…

Otherwise, simply shoot something white and set your camera’s wb accordingly.

White…

Now I’m confused.

My camera has one manual WB setting. You push a button when it’s aimed at your calibrating color. What is that color?

Thanks,
—
Al, the usual

aim it at a white card to get white balance… aim it at a grey card to get exposure, and/or neutral MIDTONES… but DO NOT SET WHITE BALNCE to a grey card…

On 2007-06-17 12:26:41 -0500, Usual Suspect said:

I’ve heard that skin tones are the most difficult aspect of portraits to get right. My subjects’ skin looks either red or yellow or orange. I’ve been sliding hue and saturation sliders in the Hue/Saturation dialog for more time than I care to admit, and still cannot get good skin tone.
Any pointers? Suggestions? On-line primers?

One thing that I don’t understand: when I slide the yellow hue to the high end (max value) the skin goes very greenish. But when I choose "greens" and slide the hue slider, there is no change. Why is this?

Photoshop CS (v 8.0) Mac

Thanks,

I always convert to cmyk and use levels…. this way you can adjust the cyan, magenta, yellow, and keep the black pretty much where it is… this way you can also fix shadows and highlights… any questions… feel free to email me at

Nic

On 2007-06-17 12:26:41 -0500, Usual Suspect said:

I’ve heard that skin tones are the most difficult aspect of portraits to get
right. My subjects’ skin looks either red or yellow or orange. I’ve been sliding hue and saturation sliders in the Hue/Saturation dialog for more time
than I care to admit, and still cannot get good skin tone.

This is an unpredicable way to adjust skin tones. I recommend using curves, plus a little know-how about what makes a good skin tone. As Nic says, the cmyk color space is a good one for adjusting skin tones.

Any pointers? Suggestions? On-line primers?

Get a copy of either "Professional Photoshop" or "Photoshop LAB Color" Dan Margulis. Either of these books has interesting and very practical discussions of skin tones and how to fix them. He’s the best at things like adjusting skin tones. Varis’s book "Skin" is a good general treatment of the subject from the photographer’s point of view, including lighting and other issues relating to technique, as well as a number of practical things you can do in Photohsop to improve skin tones. There is also the monthly Curvemeister class, which covers skin tone pinning (setting hue and saturation via curves) during the last week.

One thing that I don’t understand: when I slide the yellow hue to the high end (max value) the skin goes very greenish.

The bottom of the Hue/Sat window has two parallel horizontal bars that show how colors are being mapped. Bumping the hue slider by 180 changes yellow to blue. Changing the yellow in a skin tone also forces the nearby orange/red in skin tones to green/cyan.

But when I choose "greens" and
slide the hue slider, there is no change. Why is this?

That setting instructs the hue slider to only modify tones that are already green. Skin tones are not green, and do not get changed. BTW – the ability to limit the hue/sat control to a range of hues is one of the lesser discussed features in Photoshop – well worth exploring.
—
Mike Russell – www.curvemeister.com

Nic Samuelson wrote in
news::

On 2007-06-17 12:26:41 -0500, Usual Suspect

said:

I’ve heard that skin tones are the most difficult aspect of

portraits

to get right. My subjects’ skin looks either red or yellow

or orange.

I’ve been sliding hue and saturation sliders in the

Hue/Saturation

dialog for more time than I care to admit, and still cannot

get good

skin tone.

Any pointers? Suggestions? On-line primers?

One thing that I don’t understand: when I slide the yellow

hue to the

high end (max value) the skin goes very greenish. But when

I choose

"greens" and slide the hue slider, there is no change. Why

is this?

Photoshop CS (v 8.0) Mac

Thanks,

I don’t see many people doing it this way but I adjust
Selective Colors.
Its especially usefully for fine tuning.