skintones "color correction"

P
Posted By
Peter
Aug 26, 2004
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2551
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6
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I’m really having a hard time with consistency when adjusting my colors. When or what is a benchmark for skin tones. On some photos, I’m a touch red and others not enough. Is there a process to clue me in? To date I’ve been eyeballing it on my monitor. Is there a better way?

TIA
Peter

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Mike Russell
Aug 26, 2004
Peter wrote:
I’m really having a hard time with consistency when adjusting my colors. When or what is a benchmark for skin tones. On some photos, I’m a touch red and others not enough. Is there a process to clue me in? To date I’ve been eyeballing it on my monitor. Is there a better way?

Peter – there is a set of skin swatches used by prepress as a rough guide.

I recently did a Curmveister video based on using a variation of these swatches. The demo is a free download – you can use the technique and save the resulting .acv file for use in Photoshop, Or the swatch matching technique used in the tutorial may be adapted without much trouble for use directly in Photoshop.

http://www.curvemeister.com/tutorials/Video/Using_Pinning_fo r_Skin_Tones.avi

Mike Russell
www.curvemeister.com
www.geigy.2y.net
N
noone
Aug 26, 2004
In article <SGmXc.22517$
sympatico.ca says…
I’m really having a hard time with consistency when adjusting my colors. When or what is a benchmark for skin tones. On some photos, I’m a touch red and others not enough. Is there a process to clue me in? To date I’ve been eyeballing it on my monitor. Is there a better way?

TIA
Peter

Peter, Ben Wilmore in Adobe Photoshop 7 Studio Techniques, Adobe Press, covered "skin-tone" color calibration pretty well. I assume that he has that section (updated, maybe) in his CS book of the same name (just substitute CS for 7). He might also have info on it at his Web site, www.digitalmastery.com, but you’ll need to navigate that site pretty well, to get past the "books for sale," etc.

Hunt
TN
Tom Nelson
Aug 26, 2004
The range of skin tones is pretty broad even within racial groups. Even with the same skin color, differences in printing can cause problems, especially if the color goes green or blue.

That said, here are a few notes I’ve made from time to time. Since RGB numbers reflect the brightness as well as the color of skin, it’s not very useful for comparisons.

A skin color with an RGB of 230,150,100 might be too light or too dark for the picture you’re working on, leaving you no good guide to how to change it. The HSB (hue, saturation, brightness) color space is better for this. Click one of the little eyedropper symbols in the Info palette and choose HSB from the dropdown list. You can keep the other readout to RGB if you like. The skin tone I mentioned above is, in HSB, 23,57,90. As long as the hue stays at 23 degrees, you can change the brightness and still have a similar color.

These are random notes from various color balances:

WHCC Shirley skin tones (a "Shirley" is a portrait used as a color standard, like the "Olé No Moiré" image that comes with Photoshop): H=18-25 S=26-45 B=71-89 (Average is H22° S40% B77% or R199 G152 B119)
========================================
HSB brightness of 77% was equivalent to a medium suntan on [a job] (H23° S40% B77%)
========================================
[another job]
skin tones: highlight 78% shadow 27% catchlight 83-93% pupil 7-12%

Dan Margulis in "Professional Photoshop":
Caucasian targets are around:
R=150
G=50
Y=90

For African American reduce your red channel, for Hispanic and Asian increase your green channe
– Roger, in a newsgroup posting

Margulis again, who likes to color balance in CMYK:
"General rule for Caucasian skin tones is there should be as much yellow as magenta, usually 5 to 10 percent more. Cyan should be a fifth to a third less strength than magenta.

"Keep in mind that interpreting skintones is very subjective because of the wide range of people’s skin color, and a person’s skin tone can change across the body.

"A typical Caucasian skintone would be around 15C 50 M 55Y. A light skined person would be around 10C 40M 40Y or lower. A heavily bronzed complexion would be around 20C 55M 60Y.

"Asian skintones typically contain more yellow and cyan. Black and hispanic typically contain more magenta than yellow." ========================================
Skin tones for Photoshop ( from another newsgroup posting) Light – 10C, 40M, 40Y
Dark #1- 20C, 55M, 55Y
Dark #2 – 15C, 45M, 45Y

hope this helps!
Tom Nelson
Tom Nelson Photography

In article <SGmXc.22517$>, Peter
wrote:

I’m really having a hard time with consistency when adjusting my colors. When or what is a benchmark for skin tones. On some photos, I’m a touch red and others not enough. Is there a process to clue me in? To date I’ve been eyeballing it on my monitor. Is there a better way?

TIA
Peter

N
noone
Aug 26, 2004
In article <g8oXc.11895$>,
says…
Peter wrote:
I’m really having a hard time with consistency when adjusting my colors. When or what is a benchmark for skin tones. On some photos, I’m a touch red and others not enough. Is there a process to clue me in? To date I’ve been eyeballing it on my monitor. Is there a better way?

Peter – there is a set of skin swatches used by prepress as a rough guide.
I recently did a Curmveister video based on using a variation of these swatches. The demo is a free download – you can use the technique and save the resulting .acv file for use in Photoshop, Or the swatch matching technique used in the tutorial may be adapted without much trouble for use directly in Photoshop.

http://www.curvemeister.com/tutorials/Video/Using_Pinning_fo r_Skin_Tones.avi

Mike Russell

Mike – well done! Thanks for the post. Really looks like the solution.

Hunt
D
DavidTT
Aug 27, 2004
Getting the skin tones correct is critical and challenging since most viewers "know" what to expect. This is an area that doing it by the numbers, as preached by Margulis, can really help. Katrin Eismann’s book also goes into some details about skin tones.

The numbers provided by all these authors are for skin tones under a "normal" lighting. When applying these numbers, keep a few things in mind:

– avoid skin areas in shadow or highlight or with makeup. – each ethnic group has a range of skin tones.

Tom Nelson wrote:
The range of skin tones is pretty broad even within racial groups. Even with the same skin color, differences in printing can cause problems, especially if the color goes green or blue.

That said, here are a few notes I’ve made from time to time. Since RGB numbers reflect the brightness as well as the color of skin, it’s not very useful for comparisons.

A skin color with an RGB of 230,150,100 might be too light or too dark for the picture you’re working on, leaving you no good guide to how to change it. The HSB (hue, saturation, brightness) color space is better for this. Click one of the little eyedropper symbols in the Info palette and choose HSB from the dropdown list. You can keep the other readout to RGB if you like. The skin tone I mentioned above is, in HSB, 23,57,90. As long as the hue stays at 23 degrees, you can change the brightness and still have a similar color.

These are random notes from various color balances:

WHCC Shirley skin tones (a "Shirley" is a portrait used as a color standard, like the "Olé No Moiré" image that comes with Photoshop): H=18-25 S=26-45 B=71-89 (Average is H22° S40% B77% or R199 G152 B119)
========================================
HSB brightness of 77% was equivalent to a medium suntan on [a job] (H23° S40% B77%)
========================================
[another job]
skin tones: highlight 78% shadow 27% catchlight 83-93% pupil 7-12%
Dan Margulis in "Professional Photoshop":
Caucasian targets are around:
R=150
G=50
Y=90

For African American reduce your red channel, for Hispanic and Asian increase your green channe
– Roger, in a newsgroup posting

Margulis again, who likes to color balance in CMYK:
"General rule for Caucasian skin tones is there should be as much yellow as magenta, usually 5 to 10 percent more. Cyan should be a fifth to a third less strength than magenta.

"Keep in mind that interpreting skintones is very subjective because of the wide range of people’s skin color, and a person’s skin tone can change across the body.

"A typical Caucasian skintone would be around 15C 50 M 55Y. A light skined person would be around 10C 40M 40Y or lower. A heavily bronzed complexion would be around 20C 55M 60Y.
"Asian skintones typically contain more yellow and cyan. Black and hispanic typically contain more magenta than yellow." ========================================
Skin tones for Photoshop ( from another newsgroup posting) Light – 10C, 40M, 40Y
Dark #1- 20C, 55M, 55Y
Dark #2 – 15C, 45M, 45Y

hope this helps!
Tom Nelson
Tom Nelson Photography

In article <SGmXc.22517$>, Peter
wrote:

I’m really having a hard time with consistency when adjusting my colors. When or what is a benchmark for skin tones. On some photos, I’m a touch red and others not enough. Is there a process to clue me in? To date I’ve been eyeballing it on my monitor. Is there a better way?

TIA
Peter

D
DavidTT
Aug 27, 2004
Here are two more swatches for skin and hair, and with numbers:

http://www.retouchpro.com/pages/colors.html

Mike Russell wrote:
Peter wrote:
I’m really having a hard time with consistency when adjusting my colors. When or what is a benchmark for skin tones. On some photos, I’m a touch red and others not enough. Is there a process to clue me in? To date I’ve been eyeballing it on my monitor. Is there a better way?

Peter – there is a set of skin swatches used by prepress as a rough guide.
I recently did a Curmveister video based on using a variation of these swatches. The demo is a free download – you can use the technique and save the resulting .acv file for use in Photoshop, Or the swatch matching technique used in the tutorial may be adapted without much trouble for use directly in Photoshop.

http://www.curvemeister.com/tutorials/Video/Using_Pinning_fo r_Skin_Tones.avi

Mike Russell
www.curvemeister.com
www.geigy.2y.net

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