Hi all!
Right now I am printing my new book and its nearly finished now. Two pictures are left and both show a close-up of oiled skin (very white female) with light reflexes. On the print the skin looks kind of greyish instead of high key red/brown, which makes the skin really ugly instead of beautyful.
One thing first: my workflow is fully color managed and I usually do not have major problems, achieving the look on prints that I already have on the screen.
So: on the screen the skin file looks pretty but the print is far away from this. For several hours I tried printing/reworking/reprinting... now and I received better quality with stronger gradation and more saturation. But more saturation causes the darker skin areas to show up more than the lighter areas. So a second monochrome skin tone color layer at around 20% opacity filters the darker areas.
Also I noticed a better skin tone with printer set to "relative colormetric" instad of "perceptual". What about "saturation" and "absolute colormetric" (both are not recommended for photos)? Did not try these yet.
I already replaced existing grey pixels by using the "color replace" tool, I think these grey pixels occured through the sharpening of the picture. I also tried the "color replace" tool for the "ugly" areas, but also loose way too much structure there.
It looks acceptable now, but the downside of the layer thing is, that I am loosing a fair amount of the skin structure.
FWIW, I print on Z3100 and Hahnemuehle Photo Rag Duo.
So, especially for the guys of you who do and print nude and beauty photography: do I miss something? Is there a trick or "official" way to get nice close up skin tones out of the printer (not on screen, here I have no problem achieving the look I wish to have).
Thanks in advance!
Best regards,
Clem