Mon Aug 04, 2008 7:41 am
skin color is very difficult issue, I believe no one is right enough. It is a matter of taste, and is subjective. With very careful calibration, the high end digital capture can re-produce very faithful skin tones, but sometimes artist like to add a little touch on the skin tone to make it as a part of artistry presentation, or to harmonize into the ambient mood, we can't say they are not right, it is quite subjective. And most important thing of all, as long as a final image looks beautiful, it is beautiful, I guessed there is little people to go to museum to try to find out if anyone's artwork is in wrong color or false skin tone.
The best way I learned, is to shoot raw and if possible, use a grey card to shoot along with the subject as a natural reference and use the color reference to get the nature color using the color picker from the software. It has too much to do with all the lighting and consistency of lighting, natural or artificial or mixed, but it is a good start. When you can make it look right, then you can try to work further on your raw converter to try to get what looks better for you and improve from there. In the digital age and with all the software available and many camera offer raw ability, anyone can be their own teacher. And you need to feel good about your picture, not to rely on too much voice from others.