Week 3: Exercise 3 - Bad Skin Tones

[leeharper_admin]

Hi Greg,

Here are my attempts at exercise 3, in Lab and RGB (I will try CMYK and HSB later for comparison). One thing that I wanted to ask about this is that in most (but not all) cases, the RGB versions are darker than the Lab versions, but I can't figure out why that would be. Could you shed any light on this?

All best,
Lee.

[mikemeister_admin]

Hi Greg,

I've not been able to work on the exercises yet today (hopefully I'll get some time tonight) - but I have been doing corrections all day, and I've found the skin tone pins super useful. I thought that I would upload an example of what I've been up to...

I'll hopefully upload another exercise or two later,
Lee.

P.S., I'm gathering my thoughts about working with the zone system within CM, and I'll write that up as soon as I can.

[ggroess]

Just a double check Lee...Where are you applying the pin??  Remember the face can have heavy makeup on it...i see no real trouble but I wanted to check....

Greg

[ggroess]

Lee,

Outstanding really....

Try this to brighten the green Feathers...Apply my ACV to your after image....

Greg

[leeharper_admin]

Thanks for the curve - I will apply that when I'm back in Boot Camp (I'm in OSX at the moment)  :)

As for the pin positions, on this image I applied two of your pins - a midtone pin on the model's back, and a highlight pin. I applied the highlight pin to the chin, but perhaps a safer place would have been on the neck, under the ear.

I've tried to be careful during the day, and was generally applying pins to the models' arms to avoid the makeup problem. I figured with this one that the chin might be fairly safe - is that generally true, or should I be avoiding the face completely?

One other thing I'd like to do with this image is get the saturation of the model's back to match the saturation of her face. I was thinking that I might try a HSB saturation curve...

Thanks for the input  ;)
Lee.

[ggroess]

Or it might be possible to paint out on a skin mask...but...

I bet her face was close to the color you are showing...With model shots in general you would assume makeup and look for areas that are not generally covered..the ear was a good choice...The lighting on the back is also suspect since she is under tungsten toned light..the shadow on her shoulder was a good catch...

I personally would say that anything that makes the face have more tone would be good.  Possibly a skin mask with a L channel adjustment for the brightness.  Lot's of possibilities depending on your goals...

Greg

[mikemeister_admin]

I like the before skin tone.It looks color over porcelain.on my screen at least.GregM

[leeharper_admin]

Hey Greg M, nice to hear from you again  :) I guess that the porcelain skin looks more 'high fashion' - I think that I ought to learn to walk before I can run though  ;)

Greg G - I've applied the curve file that you uploaded. It looks great! I love what you did with the feathers, they look really cool  ;D

I've had another shot at this, taking on board your advice. I used a Caucasian highlight pin on the ear to set the initial skin tone. I found that trying to add either a midtone, or shadow pin made the colours in the image look worse, so I decided to just use one pin in the end. I did some Lab curving similar to yours (I've attached my curves), but my emphasis was on trying to make the back appear more similar to the face.

Having applied these Lab curves, I applied them, returned to CM, and wrote a HSB saturation curve - again to make the back appear more similar to the face.

I'd love to know whether you both think I've done better this time - and if there are other things that I should look at. Thanks for all the input  :)
Lee.

[ggroess]

Lee,
This is where the VERY subjective part of the process comes into play.  Personally, I would keep a bit more saturation in the skin.  You have matched the tone well enough but I think her back looks painted on...I'm not sure since I was not there but I know when I add just saturation in LAB up to say 1.25 or so it looks more "real" to me...I think it helps the overall fullness of the image as well.

Really nice work....
Greg

[leeharper_admin]

You're right. I just tried this, and even a small saturation boost of 1.25 makes a significant difference to the image. The skin tone looks much more realistic with the additional saturation.

It's good to be made aware of these things. I didn't think that I had a problem with the saturation of my images prior to this course - I'm beginning to think that I have a tendency to under-saturate images. If that's the case, it's good to know - I can start to guard against it...

Please keep pointing these things out, it's really helpful  :)

Cheers,
Lee.