Hi there. Im trying to get nice brown skintones like the ones that can be seen on Bill Simone photography or at Jim Fiscus sites. Now ive tried curves , fill, colorlibaries,hue/sat-sepia but nothing gets me even close. Maybe i have the wrong shot and maybe ive been photoshoping to much on this one to change anything.

cant upload it sorry-but anyway - any surgestions? Thanks annacarina

Try painting with brown on a separate layer set to color and lower the opacity to taste.

Bill does a couple of things for the skin tones...one is to make a new hue/sat layer...set hue to around 29 and leave saturation at 25%, then change the layer to "soft light" mode and adjust opacity and fill. Another layer he sometimes does includes making a color fill layer and setting that to soft light as well. Make sure your image isn't too contrasty before you do these though. Hope that helped!

A sample would be nice

had a go with the hue sat method. One of my images from a trip to Zanzibar

SHELL: what did you do?

Here's an example of using hue/saturation as softlight...

What cheshirepoet posted

Hi - and thanks all . I must admit - the one surgestion with brush and color mode - That is not working at all - have you tried yourself? Hue/sat and softlight is working great. BTW - great humor! thanks

Heres the image i would try it on. Hmmm - 100 kb is like scratching the balls without arms

Heres the image i would try it on. Hmmm - 100 kb is like scratching the balls without arms

hmmm...and this comes from a woman? :D LOL!

That is not working at all - have you tried yourself?

Its my standard way to correct skin tones.


In theory, making a Gradient Map of 5 or more samples of Fiscus skintones would make a good variable skin color. havent tried that one yet though.

Gradient map of Fiscus skintones? are you serious- why? - Im satisfied with well lit images - added hue/sat , blend mode and some blend if.

Model Manheim - had a look at your images - obviously you seem to know what you are talking about - I just dont understand the brown brush/colormode thing . When i try i get kind of curry yellow skintones - now you have to tell the komplete story behind this methode - eks wich brown, what do your start image look like in skincolor ect.

I am using it to correct skincolor that gets to much spill light from my bluescreen. Then I select an area with the eyedropper with good color and use my pen and tablet to paint over the spill areas, with blend mode Color. I dont usually change skin color otherwise.I have no expertize in this area.

For what I know its also a standard method of coloring b/w images.

I you get the wrong color from start you can change it later with Hue & Saturation to something more suitable.

"Im satisfied with well lit images - added hue/sat , blend mode and some blend if."

Well you mentioned the Fiscus skin tones in your first post, and this was an idea how to use exact samples of skin tone in a Fiscus image. I did not try it though. But gradient masks are good to apply a number of colors to replace those in the image. It was just an idea that sounded good.

I guees not. Thanks to those who bothered with a serious answer!

Ups - Pelle - i just saw your answer now - sorry - have to read it. I just got a littel carried away by my frustrations of the deep silence. I know youve got other things to do than to answer this forum but... sorry

Ok Ok - i understand. Im wondering if color mode also preserves texture . (have to try) .
I just started shooting green screen and have a hard time correcting color spill - even if i use Fxhomes greenscreen software. Im aware of the distance to background - but shooting full body gets me some greenspill from the floor on trousers/shoes. wich is the problem. Now this hasent got anything to do with brown skintones. Im getting that by using brown brush, softlight, hue/sat minus red- adjust opacity/fill/blendif. But to correct spill i have to try the color mode thing- also on skin. Thanks for the answer Pelle and again- sorry for my temper.

No problems. I too shoot green/blue screen and it seems impossible to get perfect extractions without some/lot of manual tweaking. On the other hand I find replacing backgrounds so rewarding ( at times ) its well worth the extra work.

Ive got to the point that I can not shoot normally now =). The possibility to use two different lighting setups/exposures for background and subject is awesome.

Thanks Pelle- yes you are totally right about bluescreen. ive just started and boy! - this gives endlees possibilities. If you asked me !/2 year ago i would have said that compositing was like cheating. I love to hear from a pro like you that getting rid of colorspill takes a lot of manual tweaking- gives me hope allthough its been allmost ok untill now. One thing i like to know is how to make that full body shot - i mean how to light without getting shadows so the extraction gets as smooth as possible. Im going to shoot green sc. tomorrow and i cant wait to have those two images to play with in photoshop. Yes this is awesome.

Its hard to get even lighting, at least if you dont have a lot of lights and room. Especially if you want to do low key portraits or simulate night lighting. I dont get it even myself and certainly not when going for lot of contrasty lighting on the subject with lots of shadows.

I think you do allright - wow! see you have famous persons as well. I dont have any of those things - have small room and some bowens lights, But its okay - im realistic about my situation regarding my skills and customers - do a littel children foto but im tired of that. Here is a littel self portrait on green screen i did yesterday - i have a hard time getting people to voulenteere for those kind of shots - would love to do a littel bit of those beautyshots - Mybe i kind find some beutyfull girls here in copenhange :)

Should say " maybe i can"

I like your image a lot. Sort of a smooth Dave Hill style.

I dont have brand name strobes, I use these very cheap chinese kits like you find on Ebay.

Only thing about the image is that the right bullet hole maybe should have som more blur to it , like the top one has.

Just to wrap up hour conversation. Are you not the photographer doing the images on "studiobild"? Thats what ive got the impression of - its just that .... !!! are you using cheap E-bay lights for those beautyfull shots? Its just because im one of those guys that , whenever i see images i like , i think that they are shot with highend equipment and i start counting my pocketchange for buying some new things - Pelle - are you kidding me? Not that E-bay is bad -i just got some cheap ebay remote triggers - and they work great for 100 kr !!

It was not to sound negative about the equipment - i love to here about someone doing so beautyfull shots like you do with less expensive equipment - goes to show that you dont allways need profoto ´something or broncolor anything.

I use the cheapest things I can find =) Im on a tight budget. I use a brand called QH ( at least here in Sweden, I guess they are sold under many different names ). They are just 110 ws strobes, but thats enough in my very limited space in my small apartement.

Hard to imagine you doing those images in alittel arpartment in Stockholm. Ofcourse bluescreen can make it seem like one has a warehouse to photograph in. Looking at your portfolio makes me think that youve got a lot of knowledge on how to avoide and remove/correct colorspill when photographing greenscreen. Im starting to wonder if there is better colors for close - i mean if different colors of close are more resistant than others for reflictive colorspill - are you much aware of this when shooting a customer on bluescreen? or do you just correct what comes along? I promise this is my last q - for now ;)

Many use a 18% grey background but that will require other methods of extraction, like channels and layermasks.
The hair always contain not only spill but as it is somewhat transparent it will pick up additional blue.So much of the hair has to be recolored. Especially when using a fan and there is a lot of stray hairs.

Thats tuff job - By talking to you , and im glad that i did, i have found out that there is a lot of work in every image - tweaking manuel - i use to think that guys like you have like a secret formular - blend mode dit ,dat ,bla bla ect. But i guees that the most used tool is the brush right.? thanks for now Pelle.

Argh!! - need to ask you if you can recomment any good books on still photography blue/greenscreen? maybe some online reading stuff? thanks

Im sorry, have no books on photography at all. Ive just been lurking and reading forums like this and experimenting a lot.

Ok - thanks Pelle - yesterday i found all i need for doing good extractions - A much better software than fx photokey - primatte 3.0 -wich gives a lot more control - wow! have to rob a bank somehwere - marry christmas

I use a filled colour layer in soft light mode.
The colour is brown/orange.
So i set the skin tone in my pictures

lg Calvin
http://www.calvinhollywood.de

yes i will use either fill or brush on softlight - seems the best