Which skin tone is best? Four different profiles

[ErikKaffehr]

Hi,

That shirt is very bright red.

I am very much an amateur, to the extent I almost refuse to sell my stuff. Reason is that I have a profession paying for my hobby.

Regarding the shirt here you have measured color (D50): http://echophoto.dnsalias.net/ekr/Articles/FakeProfiles/ColorMunki_spectrum.tif
And a text file is here: http://echophoto.dnsalias.net/ekr/Articles/FakeProfiles/ColorMunki_spectrum.txt

Best regards
Erik

Erik,

 I'll look at your file when I wake up. I want to understand what is happening to the shirt before even thinking about the skin tone - the shirt appears posterised on my laptop for some of the renderings and I want to look at the Raw itself. But frankly - on a given job synn's approach is best in a way - whatever feels nice and your customer likes is  ok. It's different when you're selling camera profiles as I used to do, and you need to create something that is both "accurate" and has a nice "look" under a bunch of lighting conditions.

Edmund

[synn]

Hi,

I like the skin tone in your photograph. But I know little about skin tone, otherwise I would have not posted this question.

Best regards
Erik

I can appreciate the honesty, Erik

In my very personal and very subjective opinion, I don't think ACR/ LR can deliver good skin tones at all, no matter how much one tweaks them. That goes for all races. Caucasian skin in particular looks too "muddy red", for some reason.

C1 on the other hand, has much more subtle gradations which looks much nicer. The default rendering is nothing special, at least for the D800/ D7100 files I have fed into it, but after you take a calibration shot of the test chart and do "Auto adjustments", you have a very good starting point from which you can work forward.

I have only used the Spydercheckr so far, but I would imagine that it would work just as nicely with any color passport with enough color swatches.

[Alan Klein]

Yes my avatar is a little red.  I;'ve been wanting to correct it for years.  As far as the OP question, sometimes you just go with your own feelings.  Color checkers aren't human. Trust your own eyes.  If it looks good to you, then it will look good to others.

[Vladimirovich]

I have no idea what a spectrometer costs, but whatever it is, I'd invest that in some lighting gear.
Much more useful for actually shooting portraits.

we are talking about postprocessing of shots that were done already - nobody says anything against lights and gels

[Vladimirovich]

Actually living in Asia and having delivered a print of that image to the subject in question to her complete delight, I find your theoretical opinions amusing, as always.

then you shall see how Japan-originated raw converter SilkyPix does the skin tones  for the target audience

[synn]

then you shall see how Japan-originated raw converter SilkyPix does the skin tones  for the target audience

Having dated a Japanese woman for 2 years, I don't disagree. 
I prefer to do such fine correction to skin, if needed in PS and plug-ins such as Portraiture, though. Raw converters have their limitations, IMO.

[Vladimirovich]

I have only used the Spydercheckr so far, but I would imagine that it would work just as nicely with any color passport with enough color swatches.

"Spydercheckr" OEM software does not build camera profiles for ACR/LR, it builds presets... not exactly the best approach...

[synn]

"Spydercheckr" OEM software does not build camera profiles for ACR/LR, it builds presets... not exactly the best approach...

As I clearly mentioned in my post, I am not using their software. Rather, I take a test shot of the chart, import into C1 and do an auto adjust.
It may sound "Too simple" or "Unscientific" or what have you, but it works.

[ErikKaffehr]

Hi,

One of the nice thing is that if a good profile is found, it can improve all existing images shot with that device.

As I said I am not a professional photographer, I have an engineering profession in a different area paying for my hobby. But it is my understanding that correctness of colour can be quite important in many professional areas. Companies are said to be quite concerned with correct rendition of their logotype colors, for instance.


Best regards
Erik

we are talking about postprocessing of shots that were done already - nobody says anything against lights and gels

[jerome_m]

It is probably foolish of me to risk an opinion considering how the discussion has developed, but this is what I see:

LR 5.3RC Color Checker Passport: almost right, maybe a bit too dark.
Adobe DNG Editor with some hands on tuning: too yellow. Color of the shirt visibly blocked.
QPCard: IMO the best, maybe a bit too light and a very tiny bit too much magenta.
Capture One, linear, daylight outdoor: too green and not enough contrast.

I find puzzling that in all 4 pictures the color of the shirt looks oversaturated.

Standard disclaimers apply. I should probably calibrate my screen more often. I don't know how you look in real life. You may have more success with better light and a younger model, preferably female and scantily clad.

And I agree that shooting portraits with a calibration chart is a very silly thing to do. People don't want their skin color to look true, they want their portraits to look better than life.

[yaya]

Erik, some random observations and comments, none are scientific, all are from experience:

The image is mildly under exposed, I'd say 1.5 stops (for the face). Not ideal for generating profiles and slightly harder than normal to find the correct WB

There is no grey card or a colour chart in the image, so creating a profile based on this image is a hit and miss, most likely a miss...

However, I suggest the following: Open it in Capture One (leaving it with the default flash profile), set WB to 4800K and -4.0 (tint), push the exposure up 2/3rds of a stop and set saturation to +10.

At least for me this seems to give a "nice" skin tone and an overall natural look especially to the Red shirt. IMO a natural, make-up-less European skin tone will have certain amounts of Red, Yellow, Brown, Bleu Green in it.

BR

Yair

[Rob C]

Most older males have sub-par color vision, if only because young females have better than average color vision . It's kind of annoying for photographers because their customers are often women with superb color vision. Luckily of course, every artist in this forum is an exception to this rule

Edmund

Imagine when they are faced by ex-models-turned-photographer!

Suicide is common amongst photographers - regardless of skin-tone.

Fred is right.

It also depends on the scene which you are presenting: tanned looks better on beach than in bedroom, where slight flush is far more suggestive (flattering and pleasing, too) than tan, which might indicate browned off, enough to make crestfallen the stoutest male heart.

Rob C

[ErikKaffehr]

Hi Jerome,

I am acting talent...

Thanks for your comments. Interesting to hear that you liked the QPcard best. I bought it because I felt it may have more tiles in subtler colors than the standard SG card.

Best regards
Erik

It is probably foolish of me to risk an opinion considering how the discussion has developed, but this is what I see:

LR 5.3RC Color Checker Passport: almost right, maybe a bit too dark.
Adobe DNG Editor with some hands on tuning: too yellow. Color of the shirt visibly blocked.
QPCard: IMO the best, maybe a bit too light and a very tiny bit too much magenta.
Capture One, linear, daylight outdoor: too green and not enough contrast.

I find puzzling that in all 4 pictures the color of the shirt looks oversaturated.

Standard disclaimers apply. I should probably calibrate my screen more often. I don't know how you look in real life. You may have more success with better light and a younger model, preferably female and scantily clad.

And I agree that shooting portraits with a calibration chart is a very silly thing to do. People don't want their skin color to look true, they want their portraits to look better than life.

[fredjeang2]

You are turning into circles.

Same talent, Gisele: wich skin tone is best in the pics I linked?

You can not answer to this question without a context and a communication intention.

When I was student in fine arts, the teachers were beating us to death with this Word over and over again: "intention?"

It's not enough saying: "well a skin tone that makes look better tan life", is like saying nothing either
because define better? define life?

You need to have something to say otherwise all options are potentialy valuable.

So you can see that here we have different campaigns that used the same talent.
No skin tone is the same.
They (we, you, I, he, she) have to make choices according to several parameters that could be:
- Brand values and history
- Context, surrounding
- Color combinations
- Emotions (intended)
- Story (intended)
etc...

You can't successfuly work from vague concept. Things have to be defined and be precise
to make choices and orientate the prod to your aims.

[eronald]

Hand me a paintbrush and I will paint your wall, excuse me model, any color you want

Edmund

You are turning into circles.

Same talent, Gisele: wich skin tone is best in the pics I linked?

You can not answer to this question without a context and a communication intention.

When I was student in fine arts, the teachers were beating us to death with this Word over and over again: "intention?"

It's not enough saying: "well a skin tone that makes look better tan life", is like saying nothing either
because define better? define life?

You need to have something to say otherwise all options are potentialy valuable.

So you can see that here we have different campaigns that used the same talent.
No skin tone is the same.
They (we, you, I, he, she) have to make choices according to several parameters that could be:
- Brand values and history
- Context, surrounding
- Color combinations
- Emotions (intended)
- Story (intended)
etc...

You can't successfuly work from vague concept. Things have to be defined and be precise
to make choices and orientate the prod to your aims.

[Fine_Art]

Hi,

I have posted four jpegs with four different profiles. It shows myself shot by a friend with my P45+.

http://echophoto.dnsalias.net/ekr/Articles/FakeProfiles/

Parameters: Hazy sunlight, early afternoon
WB on window frame to the left (painted white)

Profiles:

LR5.3RC (color checker passport, Adobe DNG Profile editor and QPcard, The DNG profile editor file is slightly tuned)

Capture One (Built in Outdoor daylight)

Honestly interested in everyones opinion.

Best regards
Erik

Top right looks the healthiest skintone. It's clearly oversaturated on the shirt. Bottom right looks the most accurate based on non skin tone parts of the image. There is far more unblown detail in the shirt for example. The skin tone looks slightly grey, least healthy looking. The 2 on the left have extra red in the skin tones. They don't look right.

I would say take your vitamins then use the C1 profile.

[ErikKaffehr]

Hi Yair,

Thanks for your suggestions. Just to mention, the profiles I have made from correctly exposed ColorChecker resp. QPCard targets. The idea here is to find out how well those profiles work on skin tones, with which I am not familiar.

I processed the image according to your suggestions, and the results was quite similar to what I got from the QPCard under LR5.3. I also looked at the red shirt. I actually measured the color, it is just outside Adobe RGB. Than I selected an area on the red shirt and filled in with measured 'a' and 'b' values ignoring L. The result was astonishing, the patch could not be seen! So I guess it as good as it can get.

I will add the image to the page tomorrow.

Best regards
Erik

Erik, some random observations and comments, none are scientific, all are from experience:

The image is mildly under exposed, I'd say 1.5 stops (for the face). Not ideal for generating profiles and slightly harder than normal to find the correct WB

There is no grey card or a colour chart in the image, so creating a profile based on this image is a hit and miss, most likely a miss...

However, I suggest the following: Open it in Capture One (leaving it with the default flash profile), set WB to 4800K and -4.0 (tint), push the exposure up 2/3rds of a stop and set saturation to +10.

At least for me this seems to give a "nice" skin tone and an overall natural look especially to the Red shirt. IMO a natural, make-up-less European skin tone will have certain amounts of Red, Yellow, Brown, Bleu Green in it.

BR

Yair

[Fine_Art]

I had a look at the link on my regular PC. The bottom left looks much better. My laptop has a small gamut relative to sRGB vs this screen which is about ARGB. The C1 looks very bad. C1 has always seemed to have very good color so something is wrong there.

[ErikKaffehr]

Hi,

Interesting!

The left one is QPCard software with QPCard target.

A few observations:

- I measured the shirt and it is just outside Adobe RGB, the images are shown in sRGB. So there is a natural clipping.
- The Adobe DNG profile I have pushes reds wide outside Adobe RGB, just inside ProPhoto RGB (which is what I normally use)
- Yair suggested some setting. They match reds on shirt perfectly ( will post it later )

I had 'votes' for all images.


Best regards
Erik

I had a look at the link on my regular PC. The bottom left looks much better. My laptop has a small gamut relative to sRGB vs this screen which is about ARGB. The C1 looks very bad. C1 has always seemed to have very good color so something is wrong there.

[eronald]

Erik, please PM me your email, I've retrieved one of my old edited profiles for Phase and can email it to you.

Edmund