Luminous Landscape Forum
Equipment & Techniques => Medium Format / Film / Digital Backs – and Large Sensor Photography => Topic started by: gwhitf on December 04, 2008, 09:54:06 am
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I know this forum is mostly landscapes and such, but I wonder if anyone here is truly feeling good about nailing the perfect, natural skin tone, even with strobe, without a ton of post work needed after the fact?
I have owned 1ds, 1ds2, 1ds3, P45, P30, P21, and I fight it every single job. I call it the search for that Natural Global Brown Skin Tone. I have a theory that the whole reason that all this crazy over-processed style came about was because all these film guys switched to digital one day, and they were clueless about how to hit skin, so they said Well if I cant hit it, then let's just start another fad, and we'll desaturate the skin and add some contrast, and it'll be cool. But not every job is appropriate for that. And sometimes it comes down to the real basics -- how to nail the skin, without a dozen Adjustment Layers. The nicest skin, to me, still results from Color Neg film, even in 2008. I'm talking just natural even skin, without those harsh transitions, and without runaway Reds and Yellows.
I have used the Color Editor in PhaseOne 3.79 a good bit, to create new custom Input Profiles. It works OK. Yet I find that damn near with each job, in each new lighting situation, you almost have a create a new style. Every job.
With Canon DPP, you've got Contrast, and you've got Hue, and you've got Saturation, and I've found that Canon always skews toward the Red, (as does Phase). So you think, Well just drop the Saturation, or slide the Hue, but then you're affecting everything, which is awful. And even then, still hard to hit that magic skin.
If I was Phase, I'd include about TWENTY different input profiles just for skin alone, canned inside CaptureOne. I have found it's best, with CaptureOne, to use NO COLOR CORRECTION input profile with Phase, and then tweak it in Photoshop later. NCC is much much more neutral, and you reduce that weird "Yellow to Red" transitions that happen with Phase chip.
Same with Canon and DPP. Right now, there's Neutral, and Standard, Landscape, and such, but I'd like the ability to have twenty "styles" inside of DPP for skin alone. A true professional solution.
I have no idea how Leaf deals with this, or Hasselblad. Never used their software, (other than the old Flexcolor, with the Imacon scanner).
You see these retouched samples inside of say Victor Magazine, and they're stunning, but what they don't tell you, of course, is that who knows what the hell the RAW file looked like, right out of the can, and they never include the five figure invoice from the Retoucher either.
Is it just me, or is everyone else hitting perfect skin, right out of the can?
I hear you..
But I always do a white balance before each shot and after the light has changed..
Then I do all my Skin tones by the numbers in photoshop which is the proper way to do it.
Now you do realize, I am sure, that depending where and for what your picture is going to be publish it changes..
Web display a different color than magazines than Catalogues.
Worse than what you mention is that when I get the skin tones like I want.. Usually the Printers Screw everything up anyways when they put in their Profiles and change to cymk...:+}
For what media are you talking about???
Also if you do not have a calibrated monitor , forget it.
Also I do not see how C-1 could have so many canned profiles that would work as depending what lights your are using and what reflections are being tossed into the skin tone from surrounding objects you will never get anything out of a canned profile.
I understand your frustration and I am also one of those.. Desaturate the red and or yellows on all my images.. Not b/c I do not like the Skin tones but b/c I personally like the skin a little desaturated and Surreal.
Snook
PS. IF you do any retouching to your images.. Many adjustment layers in photoshop will change color so you have to be aware and always check the numbers before you give the final Image.
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Basically, the camera you are using or the software you are using should provide color profiles (or color rendering) based on some kind of study. The results of this study might not be what you are looking for in terms of skin tone. So, my best advice to you is to do one of the two:
1. Find the software/camera/profile with the skin color you are looking for.
2. Do your own ICC profile.
Regarding 2, an ICC profile will be able to suit ant subject as long as you don't change lighting conditions (like from D50 to tungsten). A good ICC profile can be one stop for all skin tones as long as you are not asking too much.
Here is how to do an ICC profile with an ICC editor (such as the one in C1):
1. Gather all skin tone images you have under flash into one folder
2. Start with one skin tone sample and try to fix that color the best you can
3. Move to the next image and try to fix that image, even if it means changing the previous image adjustments
4. Repeat for all images.
5. At the end, go back and fix the images you feel you really want to get right.
6. You will not be able to get perfect skin color in every shoot. This is a starting point profile. You'll have to make adjustments to some skin tones on set.
7. If you find that some tones have to be fixed very differently than others, you'll have to divide those tone into a different group and make a profile for that group.
8. Take your time, this kind of process takes about 2-3 weeks.
Have fun.
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What exactly is the procedure for "by the numbers"? What is the approach? Have a certain RGB combination, and then do Adjustment Layers until you hit that? How: Brazilian, Caucasian, African-American, Asian? Seems way too broad for me to understand. A Sudanese model next to Obama? A freckled Irish girl next to Heidi Klum?
Of course, calibrated monitor and advanced knowledge of Photoshop and Adjustment Layers and Input/Output profiles, automatic.
I'd like to see a feature similar to that cheesey VARIATIONS command inside of Photoshop, but where you could take the base image, and then load maybe six or eight different skin input profiles, and then see the effect that each of those profiles has on the image in front of you. Of course, every situation is different, but you could just roll the dice and preview the various skin profiles.
Of course, every face is not going to be perfectly brown. But every job does not afford budget or time for massive makeup situation on every subject. And even WITH makeup artist, many times, I'm still fighting that Yellow-to-Red transition, especially with Phase, even with NCC IP.
No Cheese and it works..
There is a formula.
Of course the end result is how "you" see it..
Do a search fro Skin tones by the Numbers.. Lee Varis has a great book you should read.. It is called SKIN!
Just what your talking about.
I put a dropper on the hight light (on the face), actually I put several in different locations and then you change the dropper tool to read out CYMK then by the number you can get the skin tone you want.
A perfect example and a base to go by is Even in RGB R should be more than G and G should be slightly more than B depending on how warm you want the skin tones to be.
It is juts to open and many people see things different but if you follow the numbers and trust them.. you really cannot go wrong. I mean the girl won't look like a green martian from another planet.
African Americans or "Black" Skins usually have a lot more Blue or Cyan to them.. Once you start getting it down it is really easy and a first step in my Post work.. I think anybody's post work really.. Should be!!
The Book by Lee Varis is a MUST if you do retouching and especially people retouching!
Do your self a favor and go get the book. Or you can do a search on Google= Skintones by the Numbers.. there should many thousands of Post that you can easily dig through.
Like you said most people in here are Not shooting Portrait and or Beauty /Fashion
So I doubt you will get much response.. atleast I am sure not better than mine.
These Old farts in here Like to Fight over megapixels... And that is about it.
Snook
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Please furnish me with these ICC Input Profiles:
A. "PhaseP45_CokeModel_RedRemove": Model that just went into the bathroom and did two lines during a Break. (Red nose).
B. "PhaseP45_CEO_on_ledge_RedRemove": CEO who gives me five minutes to shoot assignment, but he saw his Third Quarter P/L Statement late last night, and he was in the Hotel Bar until Closing Time last night, (and we're shooting in Vegas, where there IS no closing time). (Red Nose from Vodka, Red Eyes from crying).
C. "PhaseP45_MiamiAsleep_RedRemove": Talent out too late at Club, then goes to sleep at Hotel Pool the day after, (in Miami sun). (Red all over).
Only Solution..
PHOTOSHOP!!!
Snook
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What exactly is the procedure for "by the numbers"? What is the approach? Have a certain RGB combination, and then do Adjustment Layers until you hit that? How: Brazilian, Caucasian, African-American, Asian? Seems way too broad for me to understand. A Sudanese model next to Obama? A freckled Irish girl next to Heidi Klum?
Of course, calibrated monitor and advanced knowledge of Photoshop and Adjustment Layers and Input/Output profiles, automatic.
I'd like to see a feature similar to that cheesey VARIATIONS command inside of Photoshop, but where you could take the base image, and then load maybe six or eight different skin input profiles, and then see the effect that each of those profiles has on the image in front of you. Of course, every situation is different, but you could just roll the dice and preview the various skin profiles.
The CMYK by the numbers "technique" is pretty bogus (its based on some undefined press condition which has nothing to do with what you're editing).
RGB is not as difficult but again, what working space? Its really easy in Lightroom using the percentages. Again, YMMV (as you point out, everyone has differing skin). But I've found that by comparing well known, quality files of various ethnic groups, that is, files I know output well, that if R is about 8-10% higher than G, and G again about 8-10% higher than B, you get a good ratio (ie 80%/70%/60%). But you still need to use your eyes and brain, a calibrated display and spice to taste.
The variation idea would be great, I've been asking Adobe to beef this up for years. I also recommend that if you create a gallery of good, well known files of skin tone that's output as you desire, you can use that as a visual guide. Again, in LR that's easy, make a collection.
I wish Adobe would produce an info palette that would toggle to the 0-255 scale to percentages as we have in Lightroom. Then there would be more parity between the two products and in cases like this, working with RGB percentages is useful. Again, the working space is a factor as the percentages in LR are based on Melissa RGB.
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First hire a good MUA, there is a big difference between a good one and a not so good one.
The good ones will even out the skin for you and also take care of the other parts of the body like hands etc.
Also select a model with a good skin if possible (sometimes it's not of course)
Than technically:
Shoot a colorchecker like the gretag.
Make a profile.
Use that profile.
Make sure your chain is calibrated, so monitor, printer etc.
Make sure that you do the calibration in the colorspace you use.
I'm using prophotoRGB and have calibrated my workflow for that colorspace.
Should be no problem after that.
I hand my models a graycard and balance on that after the session with the correct profile already in place.
For the Leaf I did not even bother to shoot the gretag, I love the skintones from the Aptus.
What we do after that is of course creative freedom, but if you want 100% accurate the colorchecker is a good start.
There will ofcourse always be limitations in what your camera CAN register, but with a proper calibrated chain it should be not a real problem to get a good skintone.
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The CMYK by the numbers "technique" is pretty bogus (its based on some undefined press condition which has nothing to do with what you're editing).
RGB is not as difficult but again, what working space? Its really easy in Lightroom using the percentages. Again, YMMV (as you point out, everyone has differing skin). But I've found that by comparing well known, quality files of various ethnic groups, that is, files I know output well, that if R is about 8-10% higher than G, and G again about 8-10% higher than B, you get a good ratio (ie 80%/70%/60%). But you still need to use your eyes and brain, a calibrated display and spice to taste.
The variation idea would be great, I've been asking Adobe to beef this up for years. I also recommend that if you create a gallery of good, well known files of skin tone that's output as you desire, you can use that as a visual guide. Again, in LR that's easy, make a collection.
I wish Adobe would produce an info palette that would toggle to the 0-255 scale to percentages as we have in Lightroom. Then there would be more parity between the two products and in cases like this, working with RGB percentages is useful. Again, the working space is a factor as the percentages in LR are based on Melissa RGB.
Bogus is a pretty harsh statement.. And by the looks of your website you have no idea what you are talking about.
Snook
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Bogus is a pretty harsh statement.. And by the looks of your website you have no idea what you are talking about.
Snook
Interesting. So can you please let us all know why you feel its not bogus to use an output color space for a device that has no relationship to the document you're editing?
What on my site gives you the idea I don't know what I'm talking about? I'm always open to peer review. Assuming you're a peer.
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Bogus is a pretty harsh statement.. And by the looks of your website you have no idea what you are talking about.
Snook
Hmmm
not to throw stones but can we see your site and some samples of your skintone method?
thanks
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Interesting. So can you please let us all know why you feel its not bogus to use an output color space for a device that has no relationship to the document you're editing?
What on my site gives you the idea I don't know what I'm talking about? I'm always open to peer review. Assuming you're a peer.
I was simply trying to help the Poster and not trying to sell books...
I was offering my Hands-on Experience help.. Not some technical BS like everything on this site...
So jumping in saying something is Bogus when you have no clue is pretty harsh.. Even if you were right.
I guess you think Lee Varis is Bogus and His Book also??
Every photoshop Program I have ever studied starts by correcting by the numbers and or White and Black points on an image..
I also mentioned , Like Frank, that it is better just to shoot with a Color chart or WhiBal to Start with.
If you want to talk all the techy BS, Go for it.. I am talking about what works for me as a Portrait photographer for 20 some odd years... And my speciality is Beauty.. Ummm , But I guess that does matter to you as you made your comment with out thinking first maybe?
Snook
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Hmmm
not to throw stones but can we see your site and some samples of your skintone method?
thanks
Ofcourse you can..
Just in the middle of Changing it, But you'll get the idea..
www.ericknorpp.com
and or
http://homepage.mac.com/ekphotography/2005/ (http://homepage.mac.com/ekphotography/2005/)
look under /2006 also if you like.. Change the 2005 to 2006.
Have not needed a site in many years but you'll get an idea of what I do..
I think it may be more reliable than a site with a chessy Muslim background and a Dog looking into a computer monitor from the 80's??
But you decide..:+]
I am sure Lee Varis had sold more books than people have even looked at this guys site.. SO Like I said, Check out Lee Varis's book "SKIN"..
Not going to get sucked into another arguement with some PixelPeeper who does not even actually shoot but once a year.. Like most people in here.
Been trying to stay out of this site lately b/c too many old ladies ready to B*itch about every little thing...
Too bad it will probably die a long with Medium format here soon...:+}
Snook
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Hmmm
not to throw stones but can we see your site and some samples of your skintone method?
thanks
Try this:
http://digitaldog.net/files/LR_Skintone_Ratio.jpg (http://digitaldog.net/files/LR_Skintone_Ratio.jpg)
Most of the skintone comes from the superb Roman 16 images (http://www.roman16.com/en/), others I've shot.
This discussion has already be voiced here: http://www.openphotographyforums.com/forum...7255&page=5 (http://www.openphotographyforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=7255&page=5)
My take on this old CMYK technique is its old, complicated and no longer viable for so many reasons of which I describe in the link above. But to paraphrase:
Take a look at your own CMYK examples here. Try this. Go into the Photoshop Color Settings, select Custom CMYK and pick the "default" which is SWOP with a medium GCR. Now open your RGB document with skin and put a sample point on the skin and have the readout set to CMYK.
In the example of an image I have (in ColorMatch RGB), the values I get are:
15/44/34/4
Now simply go back into the CMYK setup and change just the GCR to Max (nothing else). The new values are:
0/38/25/19!
The ratio's are shot. There's a difference in Cyan of 15, magenta of 6, yellow of 9 and black of 15. Which of the two sets of CMYK (both based on SWOP) are correct? I would submit, none are.
However, the RGB values haven't changed a lick. Why deal with a ratio of colors that uses four colors based on a ink and press colorant when you could simply build a set of ratio rules using RGB? It wouldn't matter one bit how a user sets up his/her color settings. The color values are the color values? And this ignores the idea of simply LOOKING on a calibrated display what the skin tones look like (or building a small visual library of known, well output skin tones as a reference when correcting an image).
This CMYK technique is simply an old, brain dead way of working numerically, based on Photoshop prior to color management, calibrated and profiled displays and well behaved RGB working spaces. It needs to go away (like Adobe Gamma).
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Is it just me, or is everyone else hitting perfect skin, right out of the can?
No !
Either..
Digital cameras act as a kind of Xray machine and show up veins under the skin leading to exagerated changes of tone not visible to the eye or pleaseant in print/onscreen
or
Digital cameras are insensitive to red - so blotches wine noses etc really show up badly because they are red and show up darker
so
1) shoot spaniards and argentinians - not english roses !
2) make shure the subject is physically warm not cold
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I have tried IR cut filter to cut infrared - helps 5%
If you are using (strobe) lights you could consider this..
a (very) mild red filter over the light will mean the light is red and shadow under eyes for example are red so they become effectively lighter in the image proportionaly reflectiing more light
of course you grey card it to get rid of the actual cast
Shooting tungsten has a red cast that will have the same effect after correction so maybe shoot under tungsten
(I got taught at black and white school to shoot women under tunsgsten and men under blue to roughen them up !)
of course when trying to balance against other lights like daylight this becomes problematic
This is the same trickery that causes confusing colours under sodium street lighting where bits of the spectrum are not reflecting strongly*
The game is to fool the sensor
Just my thoughts
S
*interestingly the yorkshire ripper a uk murderer is believed to have evaded capture partly because a witness 'mis identified' the colour of his car under sodium lighting leading the police off the trail because the murderer was ruled out on the colour of his car - it was later realised that his car would have been the colour the witness described when viewed under street lighiting at night
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I was simply trying to help the Poster and not trying to sell books...
Neither was I. I don't discuss this old and silly technique for skin tone in my book.
I was offering my Hands-on Experience help.. Not some technical BS like everything on this site...
Wake up on the wrong side of the bed? Just what "technical BS" are you referring to? You've read everything on the site and you're going on record here that everything there is BS? You sure you want to make such a rash statement and call onto yourself such a questionable statement with (as yet) nothing to back it up? I'm all ears.
So jumping in saying something is Bogus when you have no clue is pretty harsh.. Even if you were right.
Again, you've failed to illustrate how what I said is clueless. I suspect you don't have anything technically relevant to back up your claim so there goes the desire for peer review from you.
I guess you think Lee Varis is Bogus and His Book also??
No comment, I don't have Lee's book. I do know about this very old CMYK "technique" which predates Lee's book by about a decade and a half. Do you know where it came from? Lets see if you can answer and win a prize. Give you a hint, it predates color displays and Photoshop.
Every photoshop Program I have ever studied starts by correcting by the numbers and or White and Black points on an image..
Again, you don't seem to understand my points or you wouldn’t say something as silly as this. White and Black points are one thing. What encoding color space? We're (I'm) referring to a specific color model, CMYK for "correcting" skin tones on an RGB document. Got NOTHING to do with white and black points.
I also mentioned , Like Frank, that it is better just to shoot with a Color chart or WhiBal to Start with.
Totally immaterial to the discussion of using some CMYK color space, based on some press conditions to correct skin tones. If you want to talk about Color charts for WB, say so.
If you want to talk all the techy BS, Go for it.. I am talking about what works for me as a Portrait photographer for 20 some odd years... And my speciality is Beauty.. Ummm , But I guess that does matter to you as you made your comment with out thinking first maybe?
Its apparently BS to you because you apparently don't understand the points made, which is fine. Your attitude needs some adjusting though. You seem to have a lot to learn! But what you don't know or understand you call BS. Interesting attitude.
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attitude.
Andrew while you may call yourself Dog you should be aware that Snook is one who howls when his tail is trodden on
He has a fair point - we are mainly fairly tech savy in this area - can you link us to some nice portraits of yours - snook has some in the MF work thread I beleive
Anyway back to topic
S
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He has a fair point - we are mainly fairly tech savy in this area - can you link us to some nice portraits of yours - snook has some in the MF work thread I beleive
First off, what is fair about his points directed at me?
Second, his ability to shoot "better" portraits in what way backs up what he's said about the technical points I've made or my site?
Third, I'd be happy to find some portraits and pop a web gallery or something if you really think this has any bearing on point one and two above.
Oh, if you happen to be a GretagMacbeth or X-Rite customer that owns EyeOne Match, you'll find a color test file they provide, it contains portraits I shot that they feel represent good skin tone examples for evaluating profiles their package builds. Its in LAB for obvious (well maybe not obvious to Snook) reasons. I suppose if you feel its really necessary, I can downsample and convert to sRGB and post.
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now this is how a forum should be.. I like it when the saturation is cranked up here.
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I wonder if the Leaf files look as good as they do out of the camera due to their relationship with Kodak?
Please understand, I am not trying to take away from either the skill of the photographer or the capabilities of the equipment.
I just find it interesting that Leaf backs seem to be capable of producing more neutral skin tones with minimal effort than the Phase backs. Could Kodak have somehow engineered the Leaf backs to mimic the color and/or tonal characteristics of film (i.e., Portra)?
Also, I've found in my correspondence with sales reps from both Phase and Leaf, each recognizes the strengths of the other. For example, my Leaf rep, when talking about Phase, will always say something along the lines of, "well, the Leaf files look better straight out of the camera, but the Phase software does offer robust customization". Perhaps the two companies realize there are two distinct photographic styles and thus choose to focus their attention each on just one? This would seem to make sense in a niche market dealing in low volume. Makes me wonder why we haven't seen this sort of specialization in the 35mm arena.
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First off, what is fair about his points directed at me?
Forget it
I dont know jack about LAB or CMYK but im looking at at some nice prints on my office wall - all photoshopped till they looked good to my eye on my calibrated it once and couldnt see any difference lacie
Lets talk about tips and tricks for hitting perfect skin tone which is what the OP wants
preferably tricks from those who do hit perfect skin tone easily
it is my opinion that it is not possible with digital due to differece in sensitivities of the eye (brain ? - girls in the bar on a friday night after 11pm dont have spots) and digital recording device
S
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@John,
For a semi good emulation of film try Alien Skin Exposure II.
It comes according to some experts very close to film, I often use it as a finishing touch and love the ektachrome profiles.
I did not look at the work of the TS sorry he has no link to his work, I just replied to the question with all good intentions by the way.
It's a shame by the way that alot of discussions on LL are beginning to get out of control the last few months.....
I'm almost afraid to post something anymore.
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Lets talk about tips and tricks for hitting perfect skin tone which is what the OP wants
preferably tricks from those who do hit perfect skin tone easily
I already did so. At least a more modern technique for hitting skin tone ratio's in RGB.
And prefect? One man's perfect is another's not so hot. Ultimately what you feel is prefect is prefect for you.
it is my opinion that it is not possible with digital due to differece in sensitivities of the eye (brain ? - girls in the bar on a friday night after 11pm dont have spots) and digital recording device
There are a lot of really good photographers who would disagree with that. Check out the work of Douglas Dubler:
http://douglasdubler3.com/ (http://douglasdubler3.com/)
This guy is all about "perfection" with skin (among other things) and its nearly all digital, at least for the last many years. His work is seen in the Epson booth's (and Print Academy), pretty flawless.
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I already did so. At least a more modern technique for hitting skin tone ratio's in RGB.
And prefect? One man's perfect is another's not so hot. Ultimately what you feel is prefect is prefect for you.
There are a lot of really good photographers who would disagree with that. Check out the work of Douglas Dubler:
http://douglasdubler3.com/ (http://douglasdubler3.com/)
This guy is all about "perfection" with skin (among other things) and its nearly all digital, at least for the last many years. His work is seen in the Epson booth's (and Print Academy), pretty flawless.
Indeed perception, the perfect representation of the red nose wine man is not the perfect picture of him if he is the client
Maybe my question is, and possibly the OPs too, is not how to get the perfect representation but pleasant pictures
The perfect representation is fairly simple- greg card - calibrate - bosh
Mr Dublers home page image is indeed a very pleasant picture - a perfect representation I doubt it - free from the hand of PS - Id eat my keyboard
S
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@John,
For a semi good emulation of film try Alien Skin Exposure II.
It comes according to some experts very close to film, I often use it as a finishing touch and love the ektachrome profiles.
That plugin is wonderful. The presets are just a starting point.
Give it some time and you'll see.
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Sorry Guys.. have no more comments...
Going to hang out in the Aptuss 22 VS. 5DII thread for a while..
Just made some Pop Corn cuz it might get exciting over there..
Someone Challenged Frank DoofusDorf (Sp?) about his photographic knowledge!!!
Snook
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Sorry Guys.. have no more comments...
Going to hang out in the Aptuss 22 VS. 5DII thread for a while..
Just made some Pop Corn cuz it might get exciting over there..
Someone Challenged Frank DoofusDorf (Sp?) about his photographic knowledge!!!
Snook
Pfff very mature is that really that gets you off ?
My 10 year old would say, get a life.
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You have amassed quite a track record here of obnoxious comments. Nicely done.
Sorry Guys.. have no more comments...
Going to hang out in the Aptuss 22 VS. 5DII thread for a while..
Just made some Pop Corn cuz it might get exciting over there..
Someone Challenged Frank DoofusDorf (Sp?) about his photographic knowledge!!!
Snook
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I wonder if it's a question of education or maturity, or both may be.
It's about time to stop being such unpleasant and offensive in your comments and instead to show some respect to all members, if you agree with them or not, if they are right or not.
Argue if you want and if you have the right arguments, nobody has anything against, but changing the tone would be much appreciated by the majority.
Thierry
Sorry Guys.. have no more comments...
Going to hang out in the Aptuss 22 VS. 5DII thread for a while..
Just made some Pop Corn cuz it might get exciting over there..
Someone Challenged Frank DoofusDorf (Sp?) about his photographic knowledge!!!
Snook
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Hi,
I would suggest that you should use an XRite Color Checker and build a profile for your lighting condition. It is very easily done with the "DNG profile editor" download able from Adobe. That's for natural tones. Getting good or pleasant tones is another proposition. There are some very good ideas on this thread.
Some of my suggestions:
1) Flash light is rich in infrared, infrared filtering may be an idea to try, epecially if model has "blotchy" skin
2) There are different filters implementing film like colors, from Pixel Genius, DxO and others
3) A simple trick I use in Lightroom is to decrease saturation and increase "vibrance" instead
I'm no portrait shooter, but the ideas I mention are technically sound.
Best regards
Erik
I know this forum is mostly landscapes and such, but I wonder if anyone here is truly feeling good about nailing the perfect, natural skin tone, even with strobe, without a ton of post work needed after the fact?
I have owned 1ds, 1ds2, 1ds3, P45, P30, P21, and I fight it every single job. I call it the search for that Natural Global Brown Skin Tone. I have a theory that the whole reason that all this crazy over-processed style came about was because all these film guys switched to digital one day, and they were clueless about how to hit skin, so they said Well if I cant hit it, then let's just start another fad, and we'll desaturate the skin and add some contrast, and it'll be cool. But not every job is appropriate for that. And sometimes it comes down to the real basics -- how to nail the skin, without a dozen Adjustment Layers. The nicest skin, to me, still results from Color Neg film, even in 2008. I'm talking just natural even skin, without those harsh transitions, and without runaway Reds and Yellows.
I have used the Color Editor in PhaseOne 3.79 a good bit, to create new custom Input Profiles. It works OK. Yet I find that damn near with each job, in each new lighting situation, you almost have a create a new style. Every job.
With Canon DPP, you've got Contrast, and you've got Hue, and you've got Saturation, and I've found that Canon always skews toward the Red, (as does Phase). So you think, Well just drop the Saturation, or slide the Hue, but then you're affecting everything, which is awful. And even then, still hard to hit that magic skin.
If I was Phase, I'd include about TWENTY different input profiles just for skin alone, canned inside CaptureOne. I have found it's best, with CaptureOne, to use NO COLOR CORRECTION input profile with Phase, and then tweak it in Photoshop later. NCC is much much more neutral, and you reduce that weird "Yellow to Red" transitions that happen with Phase chip.
Same with Canon and DPP. Right now, there's Neutral, and Standard, Landscape, and such, but I'd like the ability to have twenty "styles" inside of DPP for skin alone. A true professional solution.
I have no idea how Leaf deals with this, or Hasselblad. Never used their software, (other than the old Flexcolor, with the Imacon scanner).
You see these retouched samples inside of say Victor Magazine, and they're stunning, but what they don't tell you, of course, is that who knows what the hell the RAW file looked like, right out of the can, and they never include the five figure invoice from the Retoucher either.
Is it just me, or is everyone else hitting perfect skin, right out of the can?
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Sorry Guys.. have no more comments...
Going to hang out in the Aptuss 22 VS. 5DII thread for a while..
Just made some Pop Corn cuz it might get exciting over there..
Someone Challenged Frank DoofusDorf (Sp?) about his photographic knowledge!!!
Snook
I used to look up to you. The shots you were posting on FM back in the day blew my mind. This is pretty sad Eric.
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I know Andrew R have experience with Color Monkey device .
While chasing this perfect skin color I was thinking about this :
What about sampling some nice skin colors using that device ?
Would that work ?
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I know Andrew R have experience with Color Monkey device .
While chasing this perfect skin color I was thinking about this :
What about sampling some nice skin colors using that device ?
Would that work ?
You would need to convert the LAB supplied values into RGB for your preferred working space. But yes, in theory it would work. I've done this with an EyeOne Pro using MeasureTool (part of ProfileMaker) or using the free EyeOne share. I don't recall if the Munki software has such software functionality but it should. And if you get LAB values, you can convert them using Bruce Lindbloom's calculator on his site: http://www.brucelindbloom.com/ (http://www.brucelindbloom.com/)
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I wonder if the Leaf files look as good as they do out of the camera due to their relationship with Kodak?
Please understand, I am not trying to take away from either the skill of the photographer or the capabilities of the equipment.
I just find it interesting that Leaf backs seem to be capable of producing more neutral skin tones with minimal effort than the Phase backs. Could Kodak have somehow engineered the Leaf backs to mimic the color and/or tonal characteristics of film (i.e., Portra)?
Also, I've found in my correspondence with sales reps from both Phase and Leaf, each recognizes the strengths of the other. For example, my Leaf rep, when talking about Phase, will always say something along the lines of, "well, the Leaf files look better straight out of the camera, but the Phase software does offer robust customization". Perhaps the two companies realize there are two distinct photographic styles and thus choose to focus their attention each on just one? This would seem to make sense in a niche market dealing in low volume. Makes me wonder why we haven't seen this sort of specialization in the 35mm arena.
This gets the to the heart of the OP's question. As noted by Morgan_Moore this is not a discussion on accuracy. A Phase back (one of the OP's many cameras) is going to produce extremely accurate color when using the default "flash" profile. The "flash" profile from P1 is so accurate that the vast majority of photographers will have no need to reprofile the camera unless they are consistently using light sources that are different than the generic HQ flashes used by P1 to create this profile.
The OP rather is concerned with getting a specific skin tone. His idea of what the "right" skin tone should be in the final product is (and I'm sorry gwhitf if I'm presuming to get inside your head) will have been formed from years of influences as wide as what his favorite film produced to what skin tones were printed in the magazines he most respected to the skin tone of his first love. This is all by way of saying that the specific tone that he wants skin to print as is completely subjective. All references to "Good Skin Tone" are subjective.
Both Phase and Leaf have "portrait" profiles intended to bend colors from "accurate" towards someone's definition of "pleasing". If you happen to like what Leaf's profile renders then Leaf files will look better "out of the box". Likewise if you like Phase's profile better then you will like Phase files better "out of the box". However, any photographer who is concerned with "skin tones" and has not both 1) tried different raw developers and 2) created their own profile is REALLY missing out. There is no need to start an argument over whether LightRoom or Capture One is "better"; it is enough to know that they are different and therefore you need to look* at each to decide which works for you. Here of course I get to brag about Capture One which uses the camera-specific profiles as a starting point and allows unlimited alteration of the underlying ICC profile through The Color Editor. As of version 4.5 this is now fully integrated into the program itself (it used to be a semi-autonomous program). With literally an hour or two of work you could easily have a Phase profile in hand which does a pretty good job of rendering skin tones where and how you like them.
While it's true that gwhitf has to make a new profile for each situation he is shooting the reason likely has more to do with the degree of specificity that he is trying to accomplish. He is likely (please gwhitf chime in if I'm wrong) using Color Editor to make changes to relatively narrow bands of color which make that profile more pleasing (to his eye**) for the situation he is adjusting but less able to hold up in changing conditions. The result is he's able to get 95% of the way there on the specific image he is working with, but has to redo his efforts for each image. A more general approach would be to make minor changes to broad slices of color with moderate-to-high smoothness. This will compress the colors surrounding the skin tones that you don't like towards the skin tones that you do like, but in a subtle way which will be more generally applicable. If the lighting situation changes the profile will still do most of the work, but rather than get to gwhitf's 95% by tuning to the specific image it would get you 80% of the way on most images (warning: numbers arbitrarily made up).
O and I AM unashamedly trying to sell our online training :-). We'll be covering advanced uses of the color editor in the Master's Level online screen-sharing-based classes (http://www.captureintegration.com/2008/11/24/capture-one-web-seminar/).
*We also have an intro class (http://www.captureintegration.com/2008/11/24/capture-one-web-seminar/) if you haven't used C1 before. If you just downloaded C1, opened it, played with it for 10 minutes and decided "It's not like Lightroom; I don't like it" then you've done yourself a great disservice.
*and what an eye!
Doug Peterson, Head of Technical Services
Capture Integration, Phase One & Canon Dealer (http://www.captureintegration.com) | Personal Portfolio (http://www.doug-peterson.com)
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I go into the Color Editor and just stumble around. That's my problem. I just grab those Reds and Magentas and drag them around, and try to calm them down. Who knows if I'm doing a good job. It just seems sad to have come this far, and then you leave it to some clueless photographer to try to stumble through creating a Profile to get acceptable skin. The Input Profile section of Capture One could be MUCH MORE POWERFUL and THOROUGH. Again, think of the VARIATIONS palette in Photoshop; imagine if Capture One had that. Imagine a photographer standing in a studio with a Digital Tech, on a Beauty Job, and then photographer could just walk over to the Eizo, and the Tech says "Which Skin do you like?" and the photographer could just point to one out of six, and then it's DONE. And it's being done right at the RAW level, before the TIFF is ever created. That's the way it ought to be. Of course, you'll take it further when you get it into Photoshop, but you've gotten way on down the road, at the RAW level.
Canon should do the same, but that ain't ever going to happen with Canon; they do the least amount possible to get the software out the door.
Gwhitf:
With all of the times you do make these attempts at adjustment in Color Editor, do you ever save those profiles? It seems if you've worked enough variation of skin tones and saved them, you'd have at least the beginings of a palette to work with that could be expanded as you go forward.
I know many are giving 4.5.2 some time to get acclimated before moving to it, but this is precisely to me where the "Styles" element of 4.5.2 would really shine. Numerous saved (successful and pleasing) skin tones, all in a pull down menu that automatically render themselves to the shown image as you pull down through each one until someone says - Stop right there!
Steve Hendrix/Phase One
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Worse than what you mention is that when I get the skin tones like I want.. Usually the Printers Screw everything up anyways when they put in their Profiles and change to cymk...:+}
Snook,
For this reason, I never let the printer do the CMYK conversions on their end. They just don't care enough about properly converting and color correcting each individual file.
After correcting the sink tones to my liking via softproofing, I then print a proof on our SWOP certified system in-house, and double check the print under the viewing station. It's also very important to send the proof with all of the SWOP color bars, so they can verify on their end.
Most of the time, the skin tones come out dead on, as well as the rest of the colors.
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The problem is: Most photographers are just photographers. They are not software engineers, and it's not even in their personality to sit down and screw around with that Color Editor. (Even though that is the power of Capture One, in terms of creating your own custom film, if you will). I just wish that Phase would have some Beauty Photographer come over there to their factory for a few days, and get a good model and good makeup artist, and do a real shoot, and then let the Photographer sit down with the Phase software guy, and let the Photographer lead the software guy through the steps of creating ten or fifteen "looks", regarding skin. I think that alone could go a long way toward eliminating that buzzword sentence that's out there in the culture that says "Leaf is more filmlike", or "Leaf has better skin". I'm saying that it probably happened damn near by accident -- some Leaf software guy just happened to write a good Input Profile one day, and then Bam, Leaf is known as "The Beauty Back".
I go into the Color Editor and just stumble around. That's my problem. I just grab those Reds and Magentas and drag them around, and try to calm them down. Who knows if I'm doing a good job. It just seems sad to have come this far, and then you leave it to some clueless photographer to try to stumble through creating a Profile to get acceptable skin. The Input Profile section of Capture One could be MUCH MORE POWERFUL and THOROUGH. Again, think of the VARIATIONS palette in Photoshop; imagine if Capture One had that. Imagine a photographer standing in a studio with a Digital Tech, on a Beauty Job, and then photographer could just walk over to the Eizo, and the Tech says "Which Skin do you like?" and the photographer could just point to one out of six, and then it's DONE. And it's being done right at the RAW level, before the TIFF is ever created. That's the way it ought to be. Of course, you'll take it further when you get it into Photoshop, but you've gotten way on down the road, at the RAW level.
Canon should do the same, but that ain't ever going to happen with Canon; they do the least amount possible to get the software out the door.
What a really spectacular idea. Your suggestion to P1 if I'm understanding it correctly, is to focus less on finely tuning one specific "portrait" profile and instead offer a variety of both subtly and drastically different portrait profiles.
Assuming such an array of profiles was made, as steve said, these profiles could be save as part of a style and then when you go to hover over each style the photo would change to reflect each profile and you could pick the one that suited the image, your mood, and the art director.
I have a feeling that P1 has not created a wide array for fear of opening themselves to "Phase can't do skin tones so they have to do all sorts of tricks and you have to pick the one you like unlike ____ brand which is good out of the box". In reality that argument would hold zero weight, but it would sure sound good, especially to anyone new to high-end or color management.
This is the sort of great collaboration I'm optimistic we'll get in the Masters Level Online C1 Training (http://www.captureintegration.com/2008/11/24/capture-one-web-seminar/) (yes! I am going to pitch that in every post). Experienced photographers, experienced techs, and the head of development for C1 all working together during the Q&A to identify needs and solutions.
Doug Peterson, Head of Technical Services
Capture Integration, Phase One & Canon Dealer (http://www.captureintegration.com) | Personal Portfolio (http://www.doug-peterson.com)
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Maybe it would be an idea to use a more warm whitebalance card.
The advantage you can find in using that is that you can replicate the setting everytime with different light setups.
I indeed thought that you needed neutral color (sorry).
What I do is balance on a correct whitebalance card and after that copy the red channel in a softlight blending mode and play arround with the opacity.
When that's pleasing I will desaturate the yellows and reds.
Most of it is repeatable and gives me something I like, I have played with the idea of asking dynatech to create a whitebalancing card with that look/feel but I think it would be hell for them to figure out what's happening.
when you would make a card with a bit too much red it would mean it would take out red when you balance on it.
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What a really spectacular idea. Your suggestion to P1 if I'm understanding it correctly, is to focus less on finely tuning one specific "portrait" profile and instead offer a variety of both subtly and drastically different portrait profiles......................yes! I am going to pitch that in every post). Experienced photographers, experienced techs, and the head of development for C1 all working together during the Q&A to identify needs and solutions.
Doug Peterson, Head of Technical Services
Capture Integration, Phase One & Canon Dealer (http://www.captureintegration.com) | Personal Portfolio (http://www.doug-peterson.com)
doug, wish you the best of luck, but there is not a single statement in this entire thread that Phase has not been told direct by photographers that buy and use their product.
(I'm sure the same holds true with all the other makers also).
has phase (or any medium format company for that matter) taken their equipment and shot 12 different ethnic skin tones with strobe, then hmi, then tungsten, then window light then daylight, then soft shadows with ambient fill, then . . .?
have they done this next to the canons and nikons and film. does any medium format maker ever shoot their digital backs next to film.
I've done it, though not specifically for profiles but for projects and I can tell you with all honesty all the the medium format backs I've used and owned are way way too color sensitive and depending on the subject and the light source can go from the best in the world to the worst just by switching a modifier or a cloud going overhead. The best I've seen on skin was a hd 39 prototype using the old flex something color but I wouldn't attempt to batch correct 5,000 files in flex something color software so that wrapped up that thought.
maybe focus is a better software, I don't know, but I do know that really beautiful skin profiles are not going to come from a manufacturer shooting color charts, vegetables and raw meat.
if I was any camera maker I would hire some kid out of school who understood the fundamentals of color and give him 12 boxes, one of digital backs, one of cameras and lenses and 8 cases of different films one box each that says canon and nikon on it and test to produce profiles for each lens, back and lighting situation next to film and what the others are doing and howeach rendered these different situations.
instead we get color editors and "fear of giving the wrong marketing message profiles".
actually the color editor is a good tool for fixing casts in backgrounds like white or gray or taking out some issues, but overall it's limited.
the best "color editor" for roll your own film is in raw developer.
anyway I strongly suggest take some subjects, (not danish) take some film and start shooting.
and when your talking to phase with your professional users group take them an i pod to show them an lcd.
but to let anyone in on how to get great skin tones is easy. start with subjects with great deep brown skin tones and stay away from white pasty translucent skin. now if you can just get a client to let you shoot everything in brazil or argentina your set.
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Hi gwhitf,
I am unfortunately very unexperienced with skin tones but hopefully some of my suggestions are a little bit helpful.
I go into the Color Editor and just stumble around. That's my problem. I just grab those Reds and Magentas and drag them around, and try to calm them down. Who knows if I'm doing a good job.
Why don't you take your camera and profiles and go to an experienced engineer who knows how to create/edit profile with you sitting next beside him all the time. Okay... maybe takes one or two days of your time but maybe worthwhile (who knows).
But you need some way to display them SIDE BY SIDE, so that anyone, however unTechnical, can just point to a variation, and say, "I like that one. Run it normal".
Actually you can do something similar with the "variants" in Capture One (but cerntainly more time consuming as you would have to assgin the different profiles to each variant before you are able to display them side by side in the viewer; too limited to 12 captures).
I use something like this:
http://www.warmcards.com/ (http://www.warmcards.com/)
but it's not this one. It has neutral grey, warm grey, and cool grey. I've had it for years. I think from that Jack Bingham guy.
If you are that critical with skin tones you should use a white balance card without metameric deviations. Color Checker and all similar cards reflect light inaccurate (accurate enough but maybe not for you). Don't know these "warmcards" but according to the price I doubt that they are accurate with regard to metamerism.
Restrictions/problems I see when editing profiles in Capture Ones color editor (though it's a great tool) on the level you are asking for:
- all you see is restrictred to your monitors gamut. Out of gamut colors are clipped (so you don't see modulations although they might be there).
Maybe not that important as skin tones should be inside your monitors gamut (but I bet the darkest skin tones are out of gamut)
- gamma. Phase One camera profiles are ~ gamma 1.8. If you set AdobeRGB with it's gamma 2.2 as ouptut profile you convert from a color space that differentiates very much in brighter tonal values to a color space that differentiates less in brighter tonal values. Skin tones may suffer from this transformation. when using the color editor you should set the output profile to "embed camera profile" (at least as long as you edit profiles... but again: all you see is limited by the gamut of your monitor.... which, in this case, ideally should be calibrated to gamma 1.8, too)
- film curves: quite agressive (steep) in Capture One (whished I could edit them as they are much more responsible for oversaturation in Capture One as the profiles themselfes). for editing profiles it's probably the best to set the film curve to "linear" and choose the camera profile "no color correction" and start from the very beginning with your profiles (even for editing a certain look by hand).
To sum up: use a gray card without metameric deviations. Set everything as "linear" as possible in Capture One. Create your profiles. Take the whole stuff to an color engineer to let him check your profiles (or let him rebuilt profiles in the way you want them to work/look like).
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Maybe a tip, just thought about that.
I once had a demo version of a plugin for photoshop that let you select skin types and colors, it had dozens of different types of skins.
You could select almost ever skintype like black, asian, european etc. and male or female I think.
By selecting one you could balance your photo to that skin, I tried it out and it worked great, however because it doesn't fit my style of work (I do want to start out neutral) I never looked into it.
If I have some time tomorrow I will browse my HDD if I maybe still have the demo version and post the name here, I think it might be what you are looking for or at least gives you alot of things to play with and maybe store something you like.
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http://www.brucelindbloom.com/ (http://www.brucelindbloom.com/)
Here ya go Snook - some interesting reading for you - enjoy!
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I'm not sure if there is really a universal perfect skin tone, but I got a very popular skin tone (among people I photograph)out of Kodak.
This is what I do: Kodak SLR/c + Kodak Photo Desk. Do white balance by "pick" on the gray card, then adjust exposure (in Photo desk) down 2 stops (darken), then adjust the mid tone by 3~4 stops (light up).
I've compared this with Lightroom. Lightroom is more flexible in tone adjust, but the skin tone is no comparison to Kodak Photo Desk.
I know this forum is mostly landscapes and such, but I wonder if anyone here is truly feeling good about nailing the perfect, natural skin tone, even with strobe, without a ton of post work needed after the fact?
I have owned 1ds, 1ds2, 1ds3, P45, P30, P21, and I fight it every single job. I call it the search for that Natural Global Brown Skin Tone. I have a theory that the whole reason that all this crazy over-processed style came about was because all these film guys switched to digital one day, and they were clueless about how to hit skin, so they said Well if I cant hit it, then let's just start another fad, and we'll desaturate the skin and add some contrast, and it'll be cool. But not every job is appropriate for that. And sometimes it comes down to the real basics -- how to nail the skin, without a dozen Adjustment Layers. The nicest skin, to me, still results from Color Neg film, even in 2008. I'm talking just natural even skin, without those harsh transitions, and without runaway Reds and Yellows.
I have used the Color Editor in PhaseOne 3.79 a good bit, to create new custom Input Profiles. It works OK. Yet I find that damn near with each job, in each new lighting situation, you almost have a create a new style. Every job.
With Canon DPP, you've got Contrast, and you've got Hue, and you've got Saturation, and I've found that Canon always skews toward the Red, (as does Phase). So you think, Well just drop the Saturation, or slide the Hue, but then you're affecting everything, which is awful. And even then, still hard to hit that magic skin.
If I was Phase, I'd include about TWENTY different input profiles just for skin alone, canned inside CaptureOne. I have found it's best, with CaptureOne, to use NO COLOR CORRECTION input profile with Phase, and then tweak it in Photoshop later. NCC is much much more neutral, and you reduce that weird "Yellow to Red" transitions that happen with Phase chip.
Same with Canon and DPP. Right now, there's Neutral, and Standard, Landscape, and such, but I'd like the ability to have twenty "styles" inside of DPP for skin alone. A true professional solution.
I have no idea how Leaf deals with this, or Hasselblad. Never used their software, (other than the old Flexcolor, with the Imacon scanner).
You see these retouched samples inside of say Victor Magazine, and they're stunning, but what they don't tell you, of course, is that who knows what the hell the RAW file looked like, right out of the can, and they never include the five figure invoice from the Retoucher either.
Is it just me, or is everyone else hitting perfect skin, right out of the can?
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I use something like this:
http://www.warmcards.com/ (http://www.warmcards.com/)
but it's not this one. It has neutral grey, warm grey, and cool grey. I've had it for years. I think from that Jack Bingham guy.
But this is not the topic of this discussion; the heart of the matter are Input Profiles. This warm card thing is way too general.
I think custom ICC profiles and white balance go hand in hand. If I take a custom ICC profile tuned under 5k strobes and then apply it to a sunset beach scene at 7200k, odds are it won't look very good. gwhitf , when categorizing the color styles you created in C1, add a color temp suffix such as Red -12 Yellow +2 @ 5000k. Personally, I find getting the right white balance can be in art in and of itself (rather than a science). If you have your custom color styles sort by white balance, then that would be a filter and help you identify which ones may work for a given image.
Also, Canon has a color editor like C1's and those profiles can be uploaded back into the 1Ds3 then are auto-embedded into the RAW. To utilize this new profile requires DPP, but it's great what to categorically dial down the reds. I agree the Canon's canned color styles stink, but being able to develop your own and upload them back into the 1Ds3 is a powerful tool. I hope this catches on because it's a baby step towards developing film formulas that could be selected in the field and previewed on the camera's LCD.
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Found it:
http://photoshop.pluginsworld.com/plugins/...e/skintune.html (http://photoshop.pluginsworld.com/plugins/adobe/848/phototune/skintune.html)
But it seems the companies website is down.
But this is what I played with, from what I saw I think it COULD fit your needs.
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The CMYK by the numbers "technique" is pretty bogus (its based on some undefined press condition which has nothing to do with what you're editing).
RGB is not as difficult but again, what working space? Its really easy in Lightroom using the percentages. Again, YMMV (as you point out, everyone has differing skin). But I've found that by comparing well known, quality files of various ethnic groups, that is, files I know output well, that if R is about 8-10% higher than G, and G again about 8-10% higher than B, you get a good ratio (ie 80%/70%/60%). But you still need to use your eyes and brain, a calibrated display and spice to taste.
The variation idea would be great, I've been asking Adobe to beef this up for years. I also recommend that if you create a gallery of good, well known files of skin tone that's output as you desire, you can use that as a visual guide. Again, in LR that's easy, make a collection.
I wish Adobe would produce an info palette that would toggle to the 0-255 scale to percentages as we have in Lightroom. Then there would be more parity between the two products and in cases like this, working with RGB percentages is useful. Again, the working space is a factor as the percentages in LR are based on Melissa RGB.
The ratio method is interesting, but even if the ratios are correct, the saturation may be wrong. I presume that this could handled by a saturation adjustment. Another approach is to use LAB, where color and luminosity are separated. Dan Margulis suggests a recipe in his book Photoshop Lab Color, chapter 16. The recipe is rather involved and interested persons should read the book. The method involves layer overlay blends in the A and B channels to enhance color and building contrast via use of the green channel with the Apply Image command. Dan presents examples using photos of subjects of varying ages and races and the results look good.
Because of the antipathy between Dan and Andrew, I doubt that the Digidog will have much good to say about the method, but his comments should be interesting.
Bill
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Found it:
http://photoshop.pluginsworld.com/plugins/...e/skintune.html (http://photoshop.pluginsworld.com/plugins/adobe/848/phototune/skintune.html)
But it seems the companies website is down.
But this is what I played with, from what I saw I think it COULD fit your needs.
Perhaps because they have been taken over by Onone Software?
http://www.ononesoftware.com/press/press_r..._20070913_2.php (http://www.ononesoftware.com/press/press_release_20070913_2.php)
Does make me interested in skintune. I find some Onone tools very handy (eg. maskpro).
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Did not know that, will for sure check it out again.
OnOne and Alien skin are about my favorites.
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http://ononesoft.cachefly.net/video/photot...ne_advanced.mov (http://ononesoft.cachefly.net/video/phototune/2008_new/QT/skintune_advanced.mov)
Phase One oughtta be taking notes...
Phase's c1 4.5 has this skin tone editor thing kind of like the color editor that has presets called honey dew or light melon or something like that.
it seems to work like the color editor and though I didn't give it much time I really couldn't get it to do anything that looked good, but I didn't spend much time on it.
Where you see a big difference in skin tones is when you work on location. All the color in all the digital cameras can change in a second just by the surrounding ambient color or light.
I do like the new C1 for processing files, it starts out with Canon, Nikon and Phase much closer to the look I want than lightroom. Actually sometimes miles closeer.
I wish Phase had taken a hint from adobe and made the interface easier as doing thousands of images and having to move from tab to tab for tone, color, sharpness etc. is much more time consuming than lightroom.
Still 4.5 is the closest I've seen in look and color for the Canon files compared to DPP which really gets the best out of the Canon.
Edit: After a large project when I sit down to process files it always hits me how consuming post production is. I'm not talking about shooting 50 to 200 frames in studio or with controlled light, but the jobs that are consuming that require multiple locaitons, multiple models and props and a thousand or so frames.
You know that your in for a grueling time sitting in front of multiple monitors, calibrating, tweaking, adjusting, moving, copying, processing, etc. etc. until you step back and add it up and every day of shooting equals at least 1 or 2 very long days of post processing just to get to the first view of web galleries.
I am fascinated about how in the transition from film to digital that all the analog color experts disappeared. Where did the guys that made film go, why did the labs disappear.
In the film days you could build a studied history with a film where you knew how it would react in almost any circumstance. You also had the same relationship with your "color expert" at the lab. You could drop off 400 rolls of film and a few polaroids and say you know make the contact with those brown skin tones, but like last time, let's try to get some light green snap to the highlights and though not perfect the first round of contacts would be pretty and predicable.
With digital every job is a roll your own new start. I use to save presets but I found few if any work on the next project, even if you use the same cameras and lights. Every times, it's a roll your own color, come back look at it and do it again.
I find the same thing with camera. You can shoot 5 brands of the same subject, put them into their proprieary software or 3rd part software like lightroom and you'd think 12 different photographers did the shot.
There is a reason there are 5 figure per image retouchers out there and it's not just because in digital we can cut and past and move stuff around. Now our relationships aren't with the film or the labs but with Adobe, Apple, Eizo and the retoucher.
Probably because I shoot under such varied conditions, but I find color to be the hardest thing to hit. I'll mess with an image until I'm almost there in the processor but I always find it amazing that once I get "almost" there I can just slam the saturation slider to the left and it has the most beautiful black and white look.
I agree with gwtif that the de sat look probably came about because it was just so damn hard to hit beautiful consistent color with a digital camera.
I'm sure some overburdened photographer one day just said screw it, I'll make the faces green and if they don't like it they can send it over to Pascal to fix it.
Somewhere some AD went "cool" lets go with the green and Lürzer's Archive, at-edge and CA mag became the post processing guide to the world.
A friend of mine recently said that you have to eventually step back and realize that we're really not shooting cameras anymore, but we're working with electronic devices. Like a a sat nav system they all can be good but they also can get very bad very quickly and you can find yourself in the South Bronx of life in an instance.
I know that somewhere here someone with a relationship with a camera manufacturer is going to say yea, but my EFIHD65LX mounted on an old twin lens Yashica using floppycolor software version 12 shoots great skin tones and throw up some over retouched image that has gone through 32 rounds of post production, but before that image comes up, post a link to the web galleries of the 500 frames that were shot sans retoucing post production.
There is a big difference.
Like everyone, I've pulled the magenta banding off arms, the yellow faces under backlit sun, built color back into an image just because a grey building was behind me.
But now I get it. I'm not using a camera anymore, I'm using a Garmin with a lens.
I really was hoping Kodak or Fuji would be the next professional camera makers. I'm sure they have thousands of laid of color experts that are playing golf in Phoenix that would like to get back to work.
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Because of the antipathy between Dan and Andrew, I doubt that the Digidog will have much good to say about the method, but his comments should be interesting.
I'm not going there <g>......
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Found it:
http://photoshop.pluginsworld.com/plugins/...e/skintune.html (http://photoshop.pluginsworld.com/plugins/adobe/848/phototune/skintune.html)
But it seems the companies website is down.
But this is what I played with, from what I saw I think it COULD fit your needs.
Another product with similar capabilities is iCorrect EditLab (http://www.macworld.com/article/51665/2006/07/icorrect50.html). I sometimes use a previous product of theirs, iCorrectPro. It uses memory colors for foliage, blue sky and skin tones. It some times works with a couple of mouse clicks and sometimes it doesn't. I don't personally use or recommend the current product, since the maker abandoned their earlier product without any upgrade path.
Bill
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I do like the new C1 for processing files, it starts out with Canon, Nikon and Phase much closer to the look I want than lightroom. Actually sometimes miles closeer.
I wish Phase had taken a hint from adobe and made the interface easier as doing thousands of images and having to move from tab to tab for tone, color, sharpness etc. is much more time consuming than lightroom.
Still 4.5 is the closest I've seen in look and color for the Canon files compared to DPP which really gets the best out of the Canon.
You can do that.
In 4.5.2 you can add or remove any tool from any of the tabs simply by right clicking on the tab and selecting which tool to add or remove. You can also drag any tool from the tabs and make it float simply by grabbing and dragging the tool. With a standard retouching setup with two moderately sized monitors this means every single tool in the program can be available at any time, and more usefully that every tool that you want to be on the screen can be. With the ultra-useful Apple-B and Apple-T shortcuts you can quickly jump to full screen viewing or back to the standard tool-browser-viewer setup.
All sorts of neat tricks like that will be covered in our Web-Based Capture One classes (http://www.captureintegration.com/2008/11/24/capture-one-web-seminar/).
Doug Peterson, Head of Technical Services
Capture Integration, Phase One & Canon Dealer (http://www.captureintegration.com) | Personal Portfolio (http://www.doug-peterson.com)
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You can do that.
In 4.5.2 you can add or remove any tool from any of the tabs simply by right clicking on the tab and selecting which tool to add or remove. You can also drag any tool from the tabs and make it float simply by grabbing and dragging the tool. With a standard retouching setup with two moderately sized monitors this means every single tool in the program can be available at any time, and more usefully that every tool that you want to be on the screen can be. With the ultra-useful Apple-B and Apple-T shortcuts you can quickly jump to full screen viewing or back to the standard tool-browser-viewer setup.
All sorts of neat tricks like that will be covered in our Web-Based Capture One classes (http://www.captureintegration.com/2008/11/24/capture-one-web-seminar/).
Doug Peterson, Head of Technical Services
Capture Integration, Phase One & Canon Dealer (http://www.captureintegration.com) | Personal Portfolio (http://www.doug-peterson.com)
Holy cow , I did not realize this myself. i just loaded all the tools I normally use under ONE tab. This is awesome and makes it much faster to get around without jumping tabs
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http://ononesoft.cachefly.net/video/photot...ne_advanced.mov (http://ononesoft.cachefly.net/video/phototune/2008_new/QT/skintune_advanced.mov)
Phase One oughtta be taking notes...
Unless I missed something in the video, this is achieved with even more flexibility with the *variations* function in Capture One 4.5.2.
Recently I've shot a family wedding and a family Thanksgiving gathering - about 1100 images in all. I have a pretty consistent look that I like with my images, although they can need individual tweaking, depending on the image. I did nearly all the edits without having to click another tab as I loaded up the Quick Tab (Q) with the tools I most commonly use, 5 or 6 different ones. And once I got one image to where I wanted it, it was easy to batch that to the images from the same scene/light.
There's a couple things I would like to see (and they may already be in there for all I know), free sort of thumbnails, more metadata input, and batch rate or batch color tag. But getting what I wanted from each image and then saving out as a web page contact sheet was relatively easy. Knowing some of the shortcuts - especially command-T and command-B to get rid of the Tools or the Browser to concentrate on working from full rez or tagging/selecting is helpful.
Steve Hendrix/Phase One
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Holy cow , I did not realize this myself. i just loaded all the tools I normally use under ONE tab. This is awesome and makes it much faster to get around without jumping tabs
Menus can get a little "long" on the laptop though I nuked the histo on the "Q" tab and added levels to replace it -- which of course also has a histo.
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You can do that.
In 4.5.2 you can add or remove any tool from any of the tabs simply by right clicking on the tab and selecting which tool to add or remove. You can also drag any tool from the tabs and make it float simply by grabbing and dragging the tool. With a standard retouching setup with two moderately sized monitors this means every single tool in the program can be available at any time, and more usefully that every tool that you want to be on the screen can be. With the ultra-useful Apple-B and Apple-T shortcuts you can quickly jump to full screen viewing or back to the standard tool-browser-viewer setup.
All sorts of neat tricks like that will be covered in our Web-Based Capture One classes (http://www.captureintegration.com/2008/11/24/capture-one-web-seminar/).
Doug Peterson, Head of Technical Services
Capture Integration, Phase One & Canon Dealer (http://www.captureintegration.com) | Personal Portfolio (http://www.doug-peterson.com)
Thanks,
I found this option later, after I posted and it's better, though 4.5.2 has some bugs or hang ups.
I really didn't want to load 4.5 until I was positive all the issues were worked out but started working in 4.1.whatever and even with updates realized it didn't read some of the Nikon files like the d700 so went to 4.5.2.
It processes well, but like 4.5 the noise, (color and luminance) sliders are way, way too sensitive. It goes from high iso noise to blur at just a small movement and not just on Nikon or Canon files, it reacts the same with Phase files.
And unless I'm missing something there is no single channel corrections like Raw Developer or Lightroom. I find myself spending a lot of time with the color editor and once again maybe I'm missing something but the color editor seems to be non responsive at times, same with the batch processor and I'm running a new 8 core macpro with plenty of ram and a terabyte of drive space so I don't think it's the machine.
Again, it does process well and fast, actually in many ways more natural than lightroom in the final look, but the interface on phase software always seems unintuitive. I can learn it, I will learn it, but the learning curve is much higher than it should be, considering lightroom takes about 10 minutes to get up to speed.
For final processing though there seems to be some kind of strange almost there look with all the 3rd party processors compared to the manufacturer's software, with the exception of Raw Developer.
Lightroom really is a roll your own system where you need to start from scratch and c1 seems closer to Canon and Nikon converters, but not exactly there, almost there. Also the previews in c-1 are much better than 3.78 but not as clear and natural as the previews in DPP and Nikons nik software. Even fully rendered they can look crunchy or kind of rough unless you take them up larger and i'm running a 30" monitor so it's not like there is not enough room.
Why are the previews in 4.5 so much different than DPP and NIK. is it Java or is it just that C-1 reads the files differently.
I really wonder if Canon and Nikon give out all their information, or if the software guys just make it up.
Maybe that's it because 4.5 reads the phase files very well and looks much more natural than the Canon, Nikon and Leica files.
I guess it is just asking too much but I would love to have a software that had the interface of lightroom, the processing speed of c-1 4.5, the color look (especially in skin tone) of dpp and nik and the previews of dpp, oh yea and the drag and move features of I-view.
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has phase (or any medium format company for that matter) taken their equipment and shot 12 different ethnic skin tones with strobe, then hmi, then tungsten, then window light then daylight, then soft shadows with ambient fill, then . . .?
have they done this next to the canons and nikons and film. does any medium format maker ever shoot their digital backs next to film.
I've done it, though not specifically for profiles but for projects and I can tell you with all honesty all the the medium format backs I've used and owned are way way too color sensitive and depending on the subject and the light source can go from the best in the world to the worst just by switching a modifier or a cloud going overhead. The best I've seen on skin was a hd 39 prototype using the old flex something color but I wouldn't attempt to batch correct 5,000 files in flex something color software so that wrapped up that thought.
maybe focus is a better software, I don't know, but I do know that really beautiful skin profiles are not going to come from a manufacturer shooting color charts, vegetables and raw meat.
James,
Yes we did shoot a number of different skin tones under different lighting when we first changed our color processing engine.
Natural out of the box skin tone from the H3D39 was one of the many goals.
Phocus is a better software of course. Perhaps you could point me in the direction of the Hasselblad Vegetable/Meat/Colour Chart testing chart because I have not seen this in my seven year career at Hasselblad. You could of course base your assumptions on current software and hardware.
Gone are the days of a few of us standing in the studio going ermmm.. make it a bit less red. The people behind the calibration processes, colour management and colour algorithms are way ahead of what we could achieve even four years ago and we can already see this with improved calibration techniques.
The work is ongoing and more improvements will come in 2009.
Best,
David
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James,
Yes we did shoot a number of different skin tones under different lighting when we first changed our color processing engine.
Natural out of the box skin tone from the H3D39 was one of the many goals.
Phocus is a better software of course. Perhaps you could point me in the direction of the Hasselblad Vegetable/Meat/Colour Chart testing chart because I have not seen this in my seven year career at Hasselblad. You could of course base your assumptions on current software and hardware.
Gone are the days of a few of us standing in the studio going ermmm.. make it a bit less red. The people behind the calibration processes, colour management and colour algorithms are way ahead of what we could achieve even four years ago and we can already see this with improved calibration techniques.
The work is ongoing and more improvements will come in 2009.
Best,
David
yes, phocus / H does indeed a nice job on skin tones.
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The work is ongoing and more improvements will come in 2009.
Best,
David
Danny,
That's great and appreciate the reply.
Glad to see your color engineers photographed some people instead of raw meat, but don't forget there are some raw meat photographers out there who need color accuracy also.
Can't wait to see what Hasselblad has for us in 2009.
All the best,
bc
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Danny,
That's great and appreciate the reply.
Glad to see your color engineers photographed some people instead of raw meat, but don't forget there are some raw meat photographers out there who need color accuracy also.
Can't wait to see what Hasselblad has for us in 2009.
All the best,
bc
I think Raw Meet issues were put to bed in 2003 but Ill make sure it is checked out.
Danny.
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A perfect example and a base to go by is Even in RGB R should be more than G and G should be slightly more than B depending on how warm you want the skin tones to be.
I've found that by comparing well known, quality files of various ethnic groups, that is, files I know output well, that if R is about 8-10% higher than G, and G again about 8-10% higher than B, you get a good ratio (ie 80%/70%/60%). But you still need to use your eyes and brain, a calibrated display and spice to taste.
Hilarious. You're both essentially saying the same thing but don't realize..?
The CMYK by the numbers "technique" is pretty bogus (its based on some undefined press condition which has nothing to do with what you're editing).
In my opinion it's the same as as your RGB method. It's based on ratios in CMYK by reading the numbers
but still needs use of your eyes, brain, a calibrated display/printer/workflow, and some spice to taste.
You're just reading the RGB numbers instead of the CMYK ones from the info palette.
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Hilarious. You're both essentially saying the same thing but don't realize..?
In my opinion it's the same as as your RGB method. It's based on ratios in CMYK by reading the numbers
but still needs use of your eyes, brain, a calibrated display/printer/workflow, and some spice to taste.
You're just reading the RGB numbers instead of the CMYK ones from the info palette.
Big difference. The RGB is BASED on the actual color space you're editing the data in, the CMYK technique is hugely dependent on the CMYK output color space. CMYK is a highly output dependent color space with all kinds of differences based on GCR/UCR specifications let alone the colorant.
Load half a dozen CMYK profiles, you'll get half a dozen CMYK ratio's and values.
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The ratio method is interesting, but even if the ratios are correct, the saturation may be wrong. I presume that this could handled by a saturation adjustment. Another approach is to use LAB, where color and luminosity are separated.
R:G:B "=" HSB-hue & saturation
Peter
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I do not work with skin, but those that do may want to have a look at this interesting piece of software for fine tuning skin that was just released. It works within Aperture and Lightroom, but probably not with the raw data.
http://www.imagenomic.com/pt2.aspx (http://www.imagenomic.com/pt2.aspx)
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Big difference. The RGB is BASED on the actual color space you're editing the data in, the CMYK technique is hugely dependent on the CMYK output color space.
If you're working within a calibrated workflow, so what?
With the RGB based numbers one has to take into account the output destination
just like with cmyk. Many times CMYK values are read while in RGB anyway and
at the end of the day, the ratios work as starting points from both IN PRACTICE.
That's why retouchers still do it. It works. Who cares if technically it shouldn't?
It DOES. Time and time again.
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If you're working within a calibrated workflow, so what?
With the RGB based numbers one has to take into account the output destination
just like with cmyk. Many times CMYK values are read while in RGB anyway and
at the end of the day, the ratios work as starting points from both IN PRACTICE.
That's why retouchers still do it. It works. Who cares if technically it shouldn't?
It DOES. Time and time again.
No, one doesn't have to take the output destination into account, certainly at this stage. You're editing in an RGB working space (an editing space). That's the master archive of which all the heavy lifting should be accomplished. In a Raw converter, you've got RGB, simple as that. You can view the numbers based on that actual processing working space without worrying about any other color space.
The old technique may "work" (once someone actually specifies the CMYK space which has absolutely no relationship on the current editing), but there's little reason to teach new users such a convoluted and complex process.
Its like trying to communicate with someone who only understands English. Instead of just speaking that language, you instead speak German, then write subtitles as you go. What's the point? Ultimately, something might be lost in translation, its far more complex and totally unnecessary. Now if you want to sound like you're some macho retoucher and love to jump thorough hoops, by all means, state that up front. But if your goal is to teach a process to someone, why go out of your way to make it far more difficult and steer from the most direct approach to editing numerically?
The entire idea here is to specify some rough ratio of color numbers. It could be in any color space or color model. Why on earth use a scale that's not based on anything you're doing? Ad another number into the mix, use a scale that's based on something you'll never use? And based on a color model that's highly device dependent and nearly never defined in the so called process? Might have been a decent idea in 1993, now, its simply silly.
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No, one doesn't have to take the output destination into account, certainly at this stage. You're editing in an RGB working space (an editing space). That's the master archive of which all the heavy lifting should be accomplished. In a Raw converter, you've got RGB, simple as that. You can view the numbers based on that actual processing working space without worrying about any other color space.
Does the above statement mean that you now consider the raw file to have a color space?
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Does the above statement mean that you now consider the raw file to have a color space?
Nope. I consider the Raw processor to have a color space used for its processing pipeline. In the case of ACR/LR, that's ProPhoto RGB with a linear TRC Gamma.
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No, one doesn't have to take the output destination into account, certainly at this stage. You're editing in an RGB working space (an editing space). That's the master archive of which all the heavy lifting should be accomplished. In a Raw converter, you've got RGB, simple as that. You can view the numbers based on that actual processing working space without worrying about any other color space.
Nope. I consider the Raw processor to have a color space used for its processing pipeline. In the case of ACR/LR, that's ProPhoto RGB with a linear TRC Gamma.
I find these statements to be a bit confusing. When one is working in ACR, he/she is really dealing with three color spaces: the raw space, which is converted to the internal working Melissa space and then to the ACR working space such as ProPhotoRGB. The only RGB numbers that are accessible are the final working space numbers. The destination workspace must be taken into consideration when interpreting the RGB output numbers.
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I find these statements to be a bit confusing. When one is working in ACR, he/she is really dealing with three color spaces: the raw space, which is converted to the internal working Melissa space and then to the ACR working space such as ProPhotoRGB. The only RGB numbers that are accessible are the final working space numbers. The destination workspace must be taken into consideration when interpreting the RGB output numbers.
As to the three possible color spaces, I'm not the least bit interested in the so called "Raw color space" since that's not provided to me in either product. And I don't want to go down that endless rabbit hole about "does Raw have a color space". That leaves ProPhoto RGB linear TRC or ProPhoto 2.2 (Melissa) the latter is the only set of numbers I'm provided in LR. For the task of working skin tones numerically, doesn't matter.
ACR provides the 0-255 values based on the encoding color space you select in workflow options. Nice because you now see the numbers you'll get in Photoshop. Not as nice for this topic in terms of not having percentages (which make working numerically with skin really easy). Also not so great because its not on parity with Lightroom (and vise versa).
LR provides you those nice percentages. It is based on Melissa RGB, the differences between it and the actual Raw processing color space being simply the TRC (2.2 instead of 1.0). Again, very useful in this context for numeric skintone work due to the percentages.
So we have two identical Raw processing pipelines. Each has an advantage in terms of the numbers provided, neither provides BOTH advantages (which would be really, really nice).
Advantage ACR: numbers match encoding color space you end up with in Photoshop. But ACR expects you to select this from the get-go and will provided a rendered image as soon as you're done. LR doesn't work this way, it doesn't know when (or if) you'll render the data into Photoshop (you may never, you might print directly, or upload a web gallery without ever opening Photoshop).
Advantage LR: percentages while working. Too bad we can't now use the same percentages once we're in Photoshop but alas, the RGB info palette doesn't allow this.
In both ACR and LR, you're pretty much expected to do as much global tone and color work as possible for reasons that should be obvious to anyone here. In a prefect world, both product would allow us to toggle the scale.
Note that you can build a Melissa RGB working space in Photoshop's custom RGB color settings. Then you could take a Macbeth LAB generated doc, convert it to ProPhoto RGB and then Melissa RGB. You'd see that while the numbers are of course different, the ratio's are nearly the same (within a few values).
In the grand scheme, all three varieties of "Pro Photo" all work equally well for this discussion, assuming you get percentages because those percentages vary a tiny amount. Melissa RGB is kind of useless compared to the other's IMHO because its not based on anything "real" but its close enough. I'd prefer if we'd just get a 1.8 TRC and just call it ProPhoto RGB or even better, just show us the 1.0 TRC values. But the chromaticity values are the same.
So I wish Adobe would allow ACR and LR to share the same processing color space using the same scales as an option, then allow Photoshop users to do the same (add percentages based on the working space to the info palette). But in the end, short of not providing absolute exacting values, LR.'s percentages make correcting skin tone numerically very easy. Personally, I'd prefer to just LOOK at the image on a calibrated display. But I recognize some users just have to have a numeric road map. I think that map should be spelled out using something that at least has some basic hook to the processing color space. In LR that's far, far closer than some arbitrary CMYK color space by a mile.
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If you're in one of the 3 most common RGB spaces (ProPhoto, aRGB, sRGB), the cmyk percentages from
the info palette (following the guidelines to be tweaked by eye) generally result in pleasing skin color.
And for skin i can convert from ProPhoto down to sRGB and the CYMK percentages from the info palette
remain generally the same. The numbers relate in that i know they work for the editing spaces i'm often in
(which for the heavy lifting and this kind of thing is usually ProPhoto) and always using the same
US SWOP v2 profile. I know the effect of these numbers when in my RGB editing space.
There's no conversion or translation i concern myself with.
The CMYK readout is right next to the RGB one. Except the CMYK readout is in percentages, and the RGB in
numerical values (0-255). I find it faster to read percentages than work out the math on the RGB numbers as
you suggest. And it's just a starting place anyway. No hoop jumping compared to reading RGB numbers to me.
But that's in photoshop, not the raw convertor.
I think this is down to workflow. Yes, i would look at the RGB numbers in the RAW convertor, but once
in photoshop i start to refine and i turn to the CYMK percentages in the info palette cause it's faster and
easier for me (like you said about percentages). And many moves are localized anyway. Not global
like in the raw convertor.
My original point was, Snook also mentioned reading the RGB numbers. With which you agree. As do i.
I just also think reading CYMK values while editing in an RGB editing space is equally useful and actually
faster/easier when in photoshop.
I get the feeling you think the CMYK percentages are read while in a CMYK profile? Maybe some do this,
but i assume they've worked out what numbers work for them in each profile as some kind of proofing
has to happen if it's going there anyway. Or sRGB. I agree the heavy lifting should be done in a larger space.
Some would rather edit in the destination space. I don't agree but each to their own.
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Amazing how much BS you all can talk about.. and for so long is quite disturbing also..
Snook
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I get the feeling you think the CMYK percentages are read while in a CMYK profile? Maybe some do this,
but i assume they've worked out what numbers work for them in each profile as some kind of proofing
has to happen if it's going there anyway. Or sRGB. I agree the heavy lifting should be done in a larger space.
Some would rather edit in the destination space. I don't agree but each to their own.
No, the CMYK percentages are based on whatever CMYK "profile" happens to be setup in the Photoshop Color settings, based on the rendering intent, BPC, GCR/GCR etc. Its based on something that's not at all locked down, can change depending on if a user is working with the Classic CMYK engine or not (SWOP isn't the same in each case). Its based on something that has absolutely no relationship to the data you're editing where the RGB values always do. And of course, the CMYK values depend on the RGB working space, making even more possibilities that someone will get differing values. And in this context, you're NOT editing in the destination space. And you shouldn't. Master editing whereby you may have multiple output destinations is done in the RGB working space. You even want to output for a destination while viewing a duplicate image with the soft proof on in the master (and build those output specific edits, in the master working space on adjustment layers in a layer set specified for the output).
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Sorry Guys.. have no more comments...
Going to hang out in the Aptuss 22 VS. 5DII thread for a while..
Just made some Pop Corn cuz it might get exciting over there..
Someone Challenged Frank DoofusDorf (Sp?) about his photographic knowledge!!!
Snook
Amazing how much BS you all can talk about.. and for so long is quite disturbing also..
Snook
Its really a shame you can't keep your promise, keep your mouth shut and actually go hang out elsewhere. Apparently we have a troll named Snook.
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reading the RGB numbers. With which you agree. As do i.
I really don't care about numbers except 255 at least when I'm doing the initial web gallery processing.
I just finished processing 19,500 files shot with daylight, mixed light, strobe, hmi and various ambient lights, even mercury vapours with the 1ds3 50%, d700 35%, Lecia M8 10%, p30+ 5% and after testing and trying all the convertors from dpp, Nik, RD, Lightroom 2 and c1. 4.5 processed all the initial files to jpegs for web galleries using c1 4.5.2
Overall I have mixed feelings about 4.5. First it processes skin tone and the Canon Nikon files very well, once you change the default sharpness and noise reudction sliders (which are way, way off in default) and it processes very nice, very fast. Even under some very complex mix lighting, it holds up well. For the few high rez files I've processed for retouching at 300% it makes incredible files with a lot of depth and a great start for the retouchers to go to work.
The usability is somewhat cumbersome. It was stable though not rock stable like 3.7, as it seems to get sluggish after about a 1/2 day of work (remember these are huge sessions of 2,000 to 3,000 files each session) and the interface is somewhat overcomplicated compared to lightroom. Why there is no large Sync or Rest button on 4.5 is beyTond me. I assume Phase wants you to work with quick keys, but under deadline and working very late simplicity matters.
Also there is some other bugs like reading the default and shot to wb of the various cameras. Sometimes it reads what was shot, sometimes it doesn't and sometimes it requires a manual setting to revert back to neutral. As I've mentioned before the noise sliders are way too sensitive and on the Canon files especially, take sharpness down to almost nothing, because it looks liek 4.5 already has a lot of built in sharpening.
Processing to jpegs on 4.5 is ultra fast on an 8 core macpro, something like 1 second a file, if that for very high rez it's just a few seconds a file.
What 4.5 is really missing is single channel corrections, even made up colors like lightroom orange correction or the ability to change the rgb channels like Raw developer. Actually it needs both.
For almost every session I used the color editor and it works like semi works but ranges from global across most of the image, or if you move the smoothness sensitivity down it has little effect. Once again, I can't urge Phase enough to offer single or multiple color corrections that require less effort. The variations menu, kind of like Alien Skin or some of the other plug ins somewhat works, but really has no useful effect that I could tell.
Actually the process and preview of the variations works well, it's just the presets are kind of basic like color pop, or blue tone, but if someone wrote some real film looking profiles they would have a lot more use.
The skin tone thing honey warm or whatever they are called never worked with any of my files, except for one session of 10 files out of 19,000.
This project had a lot of files and a lot of different light sources with 4 different cameras (really most just the Nikon and Canon) but when you work 19,000 files you learn a lot. 4.5 does produce a very nice image but once again, you have to go all over the place to really fine tune it. Color editor, white balance, tint movement, expsoure, contrast all need adjustment and sometimes a lot of adjustment for every shoot session and you can never apply a setting from a Canon file to a Nikon file of vice-versa.
I also learned how different all of these cameras see a subject. You can tune them to match, but out of the box, the Canon to Nikon, to Leica to Phase are as different as night a day. You can almost be positive that if a file looks beautiful out of the can on a Nikon it will start out awful on the Canon and once again vice versa.
It also illustrates how these different cameras focus. I finally learned in shooting this project if the subject is completely stationary (and you have a truck load of light) use the Phase, if it's slightly moving use the Canon, if the subject is really moving, or even more than slightly moving use the Nikon (if the shot is just for me I used the Leica).
The Nikon focus is a trillion times more accurate than the Canons 1ds3's. Regardless of servo or one shot, manual or auto, the Nikons focus if off the scale accurate the Canons are almost a bracket focus type of shoot, especially if your close to wide open.
Also I learned that when it comes to focus megapixels just don't matter. All things equal locked down with a lot of light obvously the Phase will have more depth and detail than the Canons (though not that jaw dropping difference, but a difference), but going from 31mpx, to 21, to 12 to 10 (on the leica) a 12mpx nikon file in tight focus makes a 21mpx slightly soft canon file look challanged.
Same with low light and high iso noise. The Canons up to about 400 are quite good, but anything past that the Nikon looks more detailed in real world viewing. Shoot at Canon at 800 iso the Nikon at 1000 iso and the Nikon file and process them out to the same size and of the same subject the Nikon will look more detailed.
4.5 is good software, makes great skin tones, uprezzes well, but in the end of working this many files, it really needs some simple rethink of the interface and please Phase put in some single channel color corrections and a very large syn reset button that actually resets back to zero.
Also in close pixel peeping detail, the 4.5 does have a quote-un quote film look. In my late night haze I compared some Canon files to some scanned film I had on a drive and when adjusted, the noise sliders the files grain structure in 4.5 looks like film much more so than lightroom which either is very smooth or rough. I had one difficult but beautiful session we shot in almost total darkness and I never could get lightroom to work it without huge nosie issues or huge smoothing issues and 4.5 did it much better, though still took a lot of adjustments.
What I would really like to see is the interface of lightroom (and the stability) and the processing speed and skin tone color of 4.5 in one software.
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The CMYK by the numbers "technique" is pretty bogus (its based on some undefined press condition which has nothing to do with what you're editing).
RGB is not as difficult but again, what working space? Its really easy in Lightroom using the percentages. Again, YMMV (as you point out, everyone has differing skin). But I've found that by comparing well known, quality files of various ethnic groups, that is, files I know output well, that if R is about 8-10% higher than G, and G again about 8-10% higher than B, you get a good ratio (ie 80%/70%/60%). But you still need to use your eyes and brain, a calibrated display and spice to taste.
The variation idea would be great, I've been asking Adobe to beef this up for years. I also recommend that if you create a gallery of good, well known files of skin tone that's output as you desire, you can use that as a visual guide. Again, in LR that's easy, make a collection.
I wish Adobe would produce an info palette that would toggle to the 0-255 scale to percentages as we have in Lightroom. Then there would be more parity between the two products and in cases like this, working with RGB percentages is useful. Again, the working space is a factor as the percentages in LR are based on Melissa RGB.
The by the numbers method suggested by the DigitalDog does work, but I think a couple of refinements are in order. First of all, it does not distinguish between absolute and relative percentages. On an absolute basis, 80%, 70% and 60% vary by 10% as you go from blue to red, but if you change the luminance, you want constant proportions. Lightroom uses pixel values normalized to 1.0 expressed as a percentage. For example, a pixel value of 204 would be read out as 204/255 * 100 = 80%. If you have a skin tone image with RGB values of 80, 70, and 60% respectively and you are pleased with the color balance, but want to reduce the luminance so that the blue value is 55%, the proportionally reduced red and green values would be 73.3% and 64.2% respectively, not 75% and 65%. These calculations are shown in the Constant Proportions table shown below. These differences are not significant, but if the luminance were decreased further (perhaps for a darker complexion), the differences would be exaggerated.
Furthermore, the gamma of the color space needs to be taken into account. For example, if the pixel values are 80, 70 and 60% as in a 2.2 gamma space such as aRGB, the corresponding values in a 1.8 gamma space such as ProPhotoRGB would be 61, 46, and 32% respectively as shown in the table with the calculated heading. These values were computed with Bruce Lindbloom's companding calculator. You would probably want to take this difference into account.
I looked at a photo in my files with acceptable skin tones. Using ACR the aRGB values were 211, 173, and 159, corresponding to 83, 68, and 62% respectively, roughly in agreement with the formula. The values in ProPhotoRGB are 75%, 65%, and 57% respectively. Since the tone curve used by ACR is not a pure gamma curve, the observed values do not agree with the values that would be predicted from Bruce's calculator, which is a pure gamma curve.
[attachment=10265:dog4.gif]
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The by the numbers method suggested by the DigitalDog does work, but I think a couple of refinements are in order. First of all, it does not distinguish between absolute and relative percentages. On an absolute basis, 80%, 70% and 60% vary by 10% as you go from blue to red, but if you change the luminance, you want constant proportions.
True. That's another reason to work in an order based on the toolset. I'd probably set luminance first, then tweak skintones using the selective controls further down in the toolset provided.
Lightroom uses pixel values normalized to 1.0 expressed as a percentage.
I'm not so sure but open to know how you came about this. The percentages in LR are using a 2.2 TRC.
Furthermore, the gamma of the color space needs to be taken into account. For example, if the pixel values are 80, 70 and 60% as in a 2.2 gamma space such as aRGB, the corresponding values in a 1.8 gamma space such as ProPhotoRGB would be 61, 46, and 32% respectively as shown in the table with the calculated heading. These values were computed with Bruce Lindbloom's companding calculator. You would probably want to take this difference into account.
I looked at a photo in my files with acceptable skin tones. Using ACR the aRGB values were 211, 173, and 159, corresponding to 83, 68, and 62% respectively, roughly in agreement with the formula. The values in ProPhotoRGB are 75%, 65%, and 57% respectively. Since the tone curve used by ACR is not a pure gamma curve, the observed values do not agree with the values that would be predicted from Bruce's calculator, which is a pure gamma curve.
This would be an issue in ACR since you have differing working space scales based on what you select in the workflow options. So in this case, advantage LR in terms of ease of use and consistent numbers. Of course, the final set of values in a working space you select will differ. So again, its pretty complicated in figuring out how Adobe can make all the various options play nicely together without making a color settings/preference dialog as large and complicated as we have in Photoshop. That's certainly something Adobe wants to avoid and I'd agree with that.
How we can use the various scales, encoding spaces and provide parity between LR, ACR and Photoshop isn't an easy solution but one that would sure be nice to have.
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I really don't care about numbers except 255 at least when I'm doing the initial web gallery processing.
I just finished processing 19,500 files shot with daylight, mixed light, strobe, hmi and various ambient lights,....
Bcooter - Thanks for the nice insight - makes me a little happier with my D3 and H1 combo used for natural light /movement and strobe/stationary - shows the grass probably isnt much greener on the C side of the wall
It is so true that 10mp of sharp is so much better than 50mp of blur , misfocus and noise frankly I think 22mp is about all that there is any value to unless shooting conditions are very tightly controlled - tripod - strobe - tethered focus check
Back to the topic..
You say that you shot under many colour conditions/light sources - do you give any credance to my theory that certain light sources -evening sun - HMI - just give better skin than say shade under a tree, unfiltered studio strobe or natural light in an mauve appartment because of the frequncy characteristics of the illumination- ie whatever tricks are done in post you cant beat a good capture from the right light source ??
and if this is the case can anyone recomend some warming filtration gels for - QFlashes - Elinchrom..
These pictures are just grabbed off my library - not heavily worked..
S
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Hilarious.
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Hilarious.
How so ?
nameless faceless exampleless number spouter
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How so ?
nameless faceless exampleless number spouter
Not directed at you (or anyone personally) but thanks.
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Lightroom uses pixel values normalized to 1.0 expressed as a percentage. For example, a pixel value of 204 would be read out as 204/255 * 100 = 80%.
I'm not so sure but open to know how you came about this. The percentages in LR are using a 2.2 TRC.
How we can use the various scales, encoding spaces and provide parity between LR, ACR and Photoshop isn't an easy solution but one that would sure be nice to have.
That is a standard way of expressing pixel values. Lightroom reportedly uses the Melissa color space, which has the chromaticities of ProPhotoRGB but uses a gamma of 2.2
To test this hypothesis, I downloaded Bruce Lindbloom's virtual MacBeth color checker in L*a*b and checked the readings of the blue, green and red patches in Photoshop (after converting to ProPhotoRGB) and in Lightroom. The results are shown in the table below. The ProPhoto results are shown in 8 bit pixel values and as a percent. The ProPhoto percentages do not match the Lightroom percentages, since the ProPhoto is gamma 1.8 and the Lightroom is gamma 2.2. The column on the right of the Lightroom display is the Lightroom pixel value converted from a gamma of 2.2 to 1.8 using Bruce Lindbloom's companding calculator. When converted, they match the ProPhoto values reasonably well.
[attachment=10277:dog5.gif]
Personally, I think that the Melissa color space used in Lightroom is a bad idea, since that space is seldom used for practical work. It would be a simple programming task to provide a percent readout in Photoshop and ACR. PS already has a percentage readout for 32 bit floating point, but I think it is for a gamma of 1.0. Meanwhile, one can have an Excel spread sheet open to perform the conversion from 8 bit to percent notation.
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Personally, I think that the Melissa color space used in Lightroom is a bad idea, since that space is seldom used for practical work. It would be a simple programming task to provide a percent readout in Photoshop and ACR. PS already has a percentage readout for 32 bit floating point, but I think it is for a gamma of 1.0. Meanwhile, one can have an Excel spread sheet open to perform the conversion from 8 bit to percent notation.
I don't disagree at all (but heck, no one asked us).
Its not seldom used, its really never used other than to provide the values here. Its not used for processing, its not used for encoding. So why show it?
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I don't disagree at all (but heck, no one asked us).
Its not seldom used, its really never used other than to provide the values here. Its not used for processing, its not used for encoding. So why show it?
They certainly haven't asked my opinion, but I would think that your opinion might carry some weight since you have written a book on color management and many articles on the subject, including a major paper about working spaces on the Adobe web site. But perhaps, the Lightroom team wouldn't listen to you either; after all, way back when Lightroom 1.0 was coming out this matter was discussed in Podcast #8 by Bruce Fraser and Thomas Knoll and others. Bruce said that they should do the right thing and use ProPhotoRGB and Thomas suggested that the user be given a choice as with ACR. Their advice was not taken or only partially taken as in the case of ProPhotoRGB--for some reason they wanted to use a the tone curve of sRGB, which uses a gamma of 2.5 for higher values and a linear ramp for low values.
Like ProPhotoRGB, I would presume that Melissa has a reference white of D50 whereas sRGB has a reference white of D65. IMHO, the Lightroom pixel readout is totally messed up. Most people edit visually with a calibrated monitor so it may not make much difference, but by the numbers editing in LR is more difficult than it could have been. Since I use ACR most of the time, the LR readout doesn't affect me that much, but it is nice to know what is going on. Perhaps you, Michael and Jeff Schewe should let the Lightroom team know what your opinions are.
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I tried a few times iCorrect Portrait from Pictocolor (http://www.pictocolor.com/portrait.htm), I was quite surprised how well it does. It's almost magic. Anyone else used this?
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Like ProPhotoRGB, I would presume that Melissa has a reference white of D50 whereas sRGB has a reference white of D65.
Yes, that's my understanding. Other then the TRC, it's ProPhoto RGB.
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Yes, that's my understanding. Other then the TRC, it's ProPhoto RGB.
Hey Andrew just saw this icon and noticed it was yours..
looks like your book is being pirated around the net...
Just thought you ought to know...:+} Even though I do not agree with you..
http://www.avaxhome.ws/ebooks/Photo_relate...tographers.html (http://www.avaxhome.ws/ebooks/Photo_related/Color_Management_Photographers.html)
Snook
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4.5 is good software, makes great skin tones, uprezzes well, but in the end of working this many files, it really needs some simple rethink of the interface and please Phase put in some single channel color corrections and a very large syn reset button that actually resets back to zero.
What am I missing? There is a "reset" button which resets all adjustments to zero (and the white balance to "as shot") and a keyboard shortcut for it which is easy to remember (apple-R) which can be changed (using "edit keyboard shortcuts").
I agree that RGB single-channel level correction would be nice to have and I imagine they'll be added at some point. But modifying the "orange" or whatever specific color can be accomplished by the Color Editor (which is much faster/responsive in my copy of 4.6 beta) using the "slice" option.
Doug Peterson, Head of Technical Services
Capture Integration, Phase One & Canon Dealer (http://www.captureintegration.com) | Personal Portfolio (http://www.doug-peterson.com)
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What am I missing? There is a "reset" button which resets all adjustments to zero (and the white balance to "as shot") and a keyboard shortcut for it which is easy to remember (apple-R) which can be changed (using "edit keyboard shortcuts").
I agree that RGB single-channel level correction would be nice to have and I imagine they'll be added at some point. But modifying the "orange" or whatever specific color can be accomplished by the Color Editor (which is much faster/responsive in my copy of 4.6 beta) using the "slice" option.
Doug Peterson, Head of Technical Services
Capture Integration, Phase One & Canon Dealer (http://www.captureintegration.com) | Personal Portfolio (http://www.doug-peterson.com)
Your not missing anything other than every function on 4.5 takes a learning curve. It's good software, processes pretty, but it still takes time to learn and little icons that represent functions make no sense.
It's not like lightrooms interface was a secret, it's out there and a lot easier to use. It almost seems like Phase made it different just to make it different.
I'm not anybody's fan boy but Lightroom is 20 times easier to learn and from beta to v2 I've never had the lightroom settings disappear like I've just had happen to 15,000 files in C-1 4.5.2.
But in regards to single channel corrections, until you've worked a lot of mixed light files in mass you won't understand why this is so important.
As far as 4.6 beta whatever where do you get it? how do you get it? why isn't it out?
As far as the color editor, well it works, but it's not that repsonsive and quite honestly takes a lot of fiddling to get it right. Way too complicated just to take some yellow out of a face.
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As far as 4.6 beta whatever where do you get it? how do you get it? why isn't it out?
As far as the color editor, well it works, but it's not that responsive and quite honestly takes a lot of fiddling to get it right. Way too complicated just to take some yellow out of a face.
4.6 Beta is not public due to a few surprise it has up its sleeve. You'll see a public release soon. Because it's not a public beta I can't comment further.
But I can say Color Editor is more responsive in 4.6 Beta which makes "fiddling" a lot more doable and a lot less annoying/cumbersome.
As for the interface 90% of what makes an interface "user friendly" or "intuitive" or "easy to learn" is the user's previous experience. Lightroom benefits from continuing many paradigms/icons and other interface choices of previous Adobe products. I'm quite sure that if you took our screen sharing master's class that you would come away understanding not only how to accomplish your goals in Capture One but WHY the interface is the way it is. It's not perfect and there are many things that leave you scratching your head even after you've mastered the program, but it only takes a few hours with someone who has spoken with the designers and trained countless photographers on Capture One to level the playing field that is inherently skewed towards Adobe because of its suite of products with a history icons/paradigms.
Keep in mind many of those icons/paradigms are copyrighted and also keep in mind that Adobe often leaves potential functionality on the sideline because they are unwilling to break with a past paradigm; sometimes you have to leave an existing (and therefore "intuitive") paradigm to add additional functionality. The copy/paste adjustments in Aperture, Lightroom, ACR, C1 3.7.X and 4.X are a great example. I will take Capture One's method of copy/paste/style over any of the other's any day, but because it is a very different way then was done in the past it feels less "intuitive" until you you've used it and really get to understand why it is set up like it is.
I used to be a GUI programmer and I can tell you one man's "intuitive" makes no sense to someone else, especially if you learn it piecemeal rather than properly.
Doug Peterson, Head of Technical Services
Capture Integration, Phase One & Canon Dealer (http://www.captureintegration.com) | Personal Portfolio (http://www.doug-peterson.com)
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4.6 Beta is not public due to a few surprise it has up its sleeve. You'll see a public release soon. Because it's not a public beta I can't comment further.
But I can say Color Editor is more responsive in 4.6 Beta which makes "fiddling" a lot more doable and a lot less annoying/cumbersome.
As for the interface 90% of what makes an interface "user friendly" or "intuitive" or "easy to learn" is the user's previous experience. Lightroom benefits from continuing many paradigms/icons and other interface choices of previous Adobe products. I'm quite sure that if you took our screen sharing master's class that you would come away understanding not only how to accomplish your goals in Capture One but WHY the interface is the way it is. It's not perfect and there are many things that leave you scratching your head even after you've mastered the program, but it only takes a few hours with someone who has spoken with the designers and trained countless photographers on Capture One to level the playing field that is inherently skewed towards Adobe because of its suite of products with a history icons/paradigms.
Keep in mind many of those icons/paradigms are copyrighted and also keep in mind that Adobe often leaves potential functionality on the sideline because they are unwilling to break with a past paradigm; sometimes you have to leave an existing (and therefore "intuitive") paradigm to add additional functionality. The copy/paste adjustments in Aperture, Lightroom, ACR, C1 3.7.X and 4.X are a great example. I will take Capture One's method of copy/paste/style over any of the other's any day, but because it is a very different way then was done in the past it feels less "intuitive" until you you've used it and really get to understand why it is set up like it is.
I used to be a GUI programmer and I can tell you one man's "intuitive" makes no sense to someone else, especially if you learn it piecemeal rather than properly.
Doug Peterson, Head of Technical Services
Capture Integration, Phase One & Canon Dealer (http://www.captureintegration.com) | Personal Portfolio (http://www.doug-peterson.com)
Your probably right doug, sometimes I forget my place in the world of digital capture.
I'm just the customer that processed 15,000 files and now all the settings won't link, but I guess I just didn't take my classes, swallow my medicine and learn it "properly".
As far as this public beta 4.6 stuff, this isn't NSA secrets. You and I both know that 4.6 is probably sitting on about 400 computers right now just working away. Two phone calls, playing nice and promising only to say gee thanks this is the greatest software ever, will probably get any phase one user a copy of 4.6.
In fact I'll bet a few of Phase's competitors already have a copy.
All semi kidding aside, I'm sure your classes provide a good service but I think given the early release issues of 4.5 and 4.5.2 phase would have been wise to keep this is beta, public or private a while longer.
bcooter
head of bcooter services
Cooterville