I need your opinion: Normal or Over-Saturated Skin Tones

[Colin Southern]

Hi Folks,

I'm wondering you'd be so kind as to have a look at the image below, and then pop a vote into the attached poll for me.

Option 1 - I'm using a profiled / calibrated monitor and the skin tones look normal and natural.

Option 2 - I'm using a profiled and calibrated monitor and the skin tones look un-natural and over-saturated.

Option 3 - I'm using a unprofiled / uncalibrated monitor and the skin tones look normal and natural.

Option 4 - I'm using a unprofiled and uncalibrated monitor and the skin tones look un-natural and over-saturated.

[Ashwin]

Hi Folks,

I'm wondering you'd be so kind as to have a look at the image below, and then pop a vote into the attached poll for me.

Option 1 - I'm using a profiled / calibrated monitor and the skin tones look normal and natural.

Option 2 - I'm using a profiled and calibrated monitor and the skin tones look un-natural and over-saturated.

Option 3 - I'm using a unprofiled / uncalibrated monitor and the skin tones look normal and natural.

Option 4 - I'm using a unprofiled and uncalibrated monitor and the skin tones look un-natural and over-saturated.

Hi colin,

My monitor I have adjusted according to My digital prints I am getting from Digital Lab.,
and according to my monitor I have tried to correct the skin tone., your comments please...

[Colin Southern]

Hi Ashwin,

Hope you don't mind, but I'm going to hide your post for a couple of days - just so that your alternate version doesn't influence peoples voting.

I'll pop it back in a day or two.

[Ashwin]

Hi Ashwin,

Hope you don't mind, but I'm going to hide your post for a couple of days - just so that your alternate version doesn't influence peoples voting.

I'll pop it back in a day or two.

I fully agree with you....

[arith]

That's what my ex wife looked like on our wedding day.

[Alis]

Hi Colin,

I voted for second option but I am not using a profiled monitor, only calibrated.

I think the tone is unnatural but I wonder whether her skin just looks that way, since she has red hair and may have a more redish/freckled skin.

Other than skin tones, the lighting is too harsh and makes the middle part of the skin on the arm for example too white.

[Colin Southern]

Thanks folks. I'd appreciate a few more votes though if anyone has time though.

[Dave Humphries]

Hi Colin,

My thoughts are that her skin looks over saturated at the very least, because as Ali says, she could look like that colour and pattern wise.

Here's the bit where I open my mouth and you tell me I'm wrong
I suspect the shot has had the saturation raised to give a better result for the door and flowers and it needs to be selectively wound down again for the skin.

I felt some viewers may be influenced by the really high chroma blobs on the face, I have disregarded those completely as they're an unsafe thing to judge upon as it could depend how you blurred it. Although agian, it could just be she spent an unwise day in the sun to get a tan for the pictures

I have to admit, in working my way down the thread, I did view the removed post before I saw why (doh)!
So my vote for option 4 may be have been made "under the influence"
However, I still suport it, having returned a couple of days later and just viewed the original.

Cheers,

[rhadorn]

Put the bride on a red background and it will look pale... Color contrast raises the subjective impression of saturation.
Once the picture is printed, it will look just fine in subdued light. Also saturation is relative.
The upper part of the picture got less light than the bottom; it looks darker; compensate for this and you will get lighter shoulders.

At the end, I don't really know what's 'natural' on a photograph; colors and light are always somewhat transposed. Even wedding photographs can be a matter of style.

Trying to make a beautifully red-skinned person correspond to the blond advertisement standard, you could get less natural, indeed.

You can get the result shown both on calibrated and uncalibrated systems. In the first case, it is matter of choice, in the second matter of chance. I did not vote.

Sorry for being such unprofessional...


Reto

[Colin Southern]

Thanks everyone. I've closed the poll ... so I can now tell you the story behind it ...

I popped in to see a colleague the other day for a chat. One thing lead to another and I said to him "next time you have a canvas print done by your usual supplier, flick me a copy, and I'll give you a free sample of what I'm doing these days".

He said "I've sent a file away just yesterday" and then gave me a copy of the image. One of my strengths is turn-around time ... most jobs I can do overnight whereas his existing supplier take one or two weeks - plus, mine are finished to a higher standard.

This chappie uses a calibrated and profiled monitor (I know this 'cause I did it!) - and he's got a good eye for skin tones - so when he gave me the file didn't evaluate it prior to printing (mostly because I wanted to turn it around in around 2 hours).

To cut a long story short, the term "boiled lobster" is probably the best the best term to describe how it looked - and needless to say it went straight in the bin.

Obviously my fault for not checking it - but none-the-less, I wanted to see where things had gone wrong (as I also run a full colour-managed environment for both screen and printer).

Didn't take long to work out that the print matched what was on the screen - and what was on the screen was definately over-cooked - BUT - I hadn't made ANY adjustments to the image prior to printing ...

... thus I concluded that the skintones were already mucked up in the supplied image. I'm not trying to pass blame as I should have checked it prior to printing - but I thought it was something he needed to address anyway.

Problem is, colleague said that it looked OK on his screen and printed OK on his work's printer (he works at a camera/print shop) (although their colour management isn't as robust). Additionally, I'd previously seen the print he was referring to - and it did look OK.

So at this point we had a situation that didn't make sense; in my colour managed environment - without making any changes to the image - it looked and printed over-cooked - whereas in his colour managed environment it looked and printed OK.

Hence the reason for the poll - the version I put up had no changes to the colour - and I wanted to see what others thought - and the general opinion seems to be that the skintones look over-cooked (so I'm right na na na na na na

@ Dave - I blurred the image by popping a low-resolution layer above the base layer, and then just erasing the bits of that layer that I wanted to reveal.

@ Reto - Yes - Those skin tones are pretty much colour opponents - which can give a different visual impression compared to what's technically correct ... but that's something you learn to conpensate for when doing this kind of work (ie you have to "consiously look past that").

Even without the green background those tones are still a long-long way for normal caucasian "pink" skin -- admittedly the lighting is harsh which didn't help -- I'm told that the flowers are also waay over-saturated.

So there's the story

[arith]

I just thought she had be in the sun

[Ashwin]

Thanks everyone.

Obviously my fault for not checking it - but none-the-less, I wanted to see where things had gone wrong (as I also run a full colour-managed environment for both screen and printer).

Didn't take long to work out that the print matched what was on the screen - and what was on the screen was definately over-cooked - BUT - I hadn't made ANY adjustments to the image prior to printing ...

... thus I concluded that the skintones were already mucked up in the supplied image. I'm not trying to pass blame as I should have checked it prior to printing - but I thought it was something he needed to address anyway.

Problem is, colleague said that it looked OK on his screen and printed OK on his work's printer (he works at a camera/print shop) (although their colour management isn't as robust). Additionally, I'd previously seen the print he was referring to - and it did look OK.

So at this point we had a situation that didn't make sense; in my colour managed environment - without making any changes to the image - it looked and printed over-cooked - whereas in his colour managed environment it looked and printed OK.

Hence the reason for the poll - the version I put up had no changes to the colour - and I wanted to see what others thought - and the general opinion seems to be that the skintones look over-cooked (so I'm right na na na na na na

Hi Colin,

One simple question, what Printer is supposed to do to the IMAGE FILE he receives for printing?.. In the present case SKIN COLOUR definately appears to be over saturated, otherwise Image is having very good details., and there is no colour cast..... If printer makes any changes to original images supplied by his client and Prints., and if his clients objects to it., saying that Skin Colour was intentionally over saturated and rejects the print
than what will happen...

Generally I dont allow my printer to make any changes to my Image files,,,

[Colin Southern]

Hi Colin,

One simple question, what Printer is supposed to do to the IMAGE FILE he receives for printing?.. In the present case SKIN COLOUR definately appears to be over saturated, otherwise Image is having very good details., and there is no colour cast..... If printer makes any changes to original images supplied by his client and Prints., and if his clients objects to it., saying that Skin Colour was intentionally over saturated and rejects the print
than what will happen...

Generally I dont allow my printer to make any changes to my Image files,,,

Hi Ashwin,

The reality is that I make adjustments to just about every image that I'm given for printing. You might think that it's "dangerous" for a printer to make these adjustments, but the reality is it's "dangerous" not to. In theory this shouldn't be necessary as I'm using a profile that matches the file to the printer/media (in this case canvas) combination, but in practice adjustments nearly always need to be made; eg ...

- Most don't realise that the highlights clipping point needs to be brought down to make the overall image brighter.

- The black clipping point needs to be raised slightly to compensate for the fact that canvas tends to drop the contrast at the blacks end.

- Often saturation has to be raise 5 to 10% (sometimes with hand desaturation of skin tones)

- They nearly all ways need some form of sharpening

- They often need artifacts removed

It's always nice when the customer is there with me and I can show them my suggestions (of which most go with) - others will trust my judgement - but only a very few will say "don't make any adjustments" (which I usually make anyway ... I just have to be very very careful with those). The last situation might seem a little "naughty", but the bottom line is that I generally know a lot more about post processing than they do - and I ALWAYS know a lot more about the characteristics of my printer and media than they do. Having said all that, I can only recall one situation where I make adjustments and a client didn't like it (that was a few years ago, and - frankly - he was right, and I got it wrong) (ironically, same client as the one above!). On the above example I SHOULD have make adjustments - I was just in too much of a rush (keeping in mind that the image was only on the screen whilst I set the size - I don't normally hang around whilst they're printing (it's like watching paint dry) (literally in this case!) - I spray them in an area of subdued lighting (so I don't pay much attention to them there) - and the image is always face down when it's being stretch-mounted - so in reality one doesn't necessarily get to see a lot of the image during the whole process.

By the way, I suspect that the above image does have a slight colour cast - I know my colleague doesn't use a gray card for white balancing. From what I can tell, he's used the dress as a neutral reference (which can be dangerous due to flourescence from UV brightners) (plus there were small WB variences at different points on the dress). Even with skintones desaturated they still didn't look right - but then again, one needs to keep in mind that this was shot under harsh conditions ... definately without the luxury of giant softboxes and controlled lighting in a studio setup.

[Ashwin]

Hi Colin,

You know the characteristic of your Canvas and other Printer, under the circumstances you know the difference between Image as it appears on the Monitor and the print you will be getting, as such you are the best judge, and you know better, what and where you have to adjust so that you get print as it appears on the monitor...

In my case Mostly I am getting my Prints on Photographic papers, and some time on Canvas, previously I was not getting my Canvas prints correctly, that was due to I have to convert it into YMCK
for canvas prints., for prints on Photographic papers I frequently adjust my monitor according to prints I receive from my printer, as such I always get prints as I see on my monitors, moreover I dont change Lab from where I am getting my prints, hence I am very much satisfied with the print quality...

[Colin Southern]

Hi Colin,

You know the characteristic of your Canvas and other Printer, under the circumstances you know the difference between Image as it appears on the Monitor and the print you will be getting, as such you are the best judge, and you know better, what and where you have to adjust so that you get print as it appears on the monitor...

In my case Mostly I am getting my Prints on Photographic papers, and some time on Canvas, previously I was not getting my Canvas prints correctly, that was due to I have to convert it into YMCK
for canvas prints., for prints on Photographic papers I frequently adjust my monitor according to prints I receive from my printer, as such I always get prints as I see on my monitors, moreover I dont change Lab from where I am getting my prints, hence I am very much satisfied with the print quality...

Hi Ashwin,

So long as you're getting results that you're happy with then I guess that's all that matters. I'm afraid that I still don't understand why your printer needs you to convert files to CMYK for printing on canvas though (off memory I think you said he used an HP printer, which has an RGB interface).

[Ashwin]

Hi Ashwin,

I'm afraid that I still don't understand why your printer needs you to convert files to CMYK for printing on canvas though (off memory I think you said he used an HP printer, which has an RGB interface).

Yes my canvas printer has replaced his old HP printer with new one, and so far as I remember he his printer is 5100... since he changed his printer I am getting my Canvas prints very well, previously we were sending him image in CMYK format., and after he has purchased new Hp., but he has never told us to send the file in RGB format., He is accepting our YMCK format files., But since we are getting Canvas Prints OK., we have not bothered to know about this change in format, now I will ask him about this....

Thank you for bringing this to my knowledge..

[Radu Dinu Cordeanu]

Hi.
Yes Rhadorn,You are right.I did not vote too.
Radu Dinu