Skintone Colour Matching in Photoshop
For years I've got home with shots where the person's face colour looks quite a bit different than the skin on their neck and arms etc.
I have done loads of experiments and I have slowly worked out that it is often down to make up, some of the modern foundations have quite an effect.
Then certain light can make it worse, flash mixed with daylight in particular, the flash that bounces back from the foundation can have a much different temperature from the neck.
In theory it should be simple to solve by using two copies of the shot, set white balance for the head in the first and for the body in the second then combine with Ps.
It doesn't work though as it can be really hard to get skin from one to exactly match skin on the other using just wb adjustments before combining.
Sometimes I have to swap heads, using a model's body from one day with the head shot from another day. Have to do it quite often with group shots - with groups it seems there's often someone who looks away or blinks on some frames, if the light changes a bit, cloud moves over the sun the colour matching becomes a challenge again.
Photoshop has a colour matching tool. Select skin on one layer and skin on another, set one as target and it should do the rest. When it works, it is brilliant, but often it is unpredictable. The more skin available to sample then the better it can work.
Has anyone got the knack of this?
I have done loads of experiments and I have slowly worked out that it is often down to make up, some of the modern foundations have quite an effect.
Then certain light can make it worse, flash mixed with daylight in particular, the flash that bounces back from the foundation can have a much different temperature from the neck.
In theory it should be simple to solve by using two copies of the shot, set white balance for the head in the first and for the body in the second then combine with Ps.
It doesn't work though as it can be really hard to get skin from one to exactly match skin on the other using just wb adjustments before combining.
Sometimes I have to swap heads, using a model's body from one day with the head shot from another day. Have to do it quite often with group shots - with groups it seems there's often someone who looks away or blinks on some frames, if the light changes a bit, cloud moves over the sun the colour matching becomes a challenge again.
Photoshop has a colour matching tool. Select skin on one layer and skin on another, set one as target and it should do the rest. When it works, it is brilliant, but often it is unpredictable. The more skin available to sample then the better it can work.
Has anyone got the knack of this?
Wish the make up artists applied their stuff thoroughly and evenly on the skin parts shown in portraiture from faces to shoulders. You have to communicate that to thdm as the sitters are getting ready for the shoot.
