Skin tone by the number for babies

[switters]

Hello,

I've got 200+ shots of my brother's one-month old baby. The skin tone came out quite red, and I'd like to correct it. Can anyone tell me what some "average" RGB numbers are for a Caucasian baby? I plan to use curves to correct the tones, but it would be nice to have some numbers to start from.

I've read a few backposts here which suggest CMYK relationships, but I'm not very familiar with how to make changes this way.

I've also been told about a plug-in called "Skin-Tune", but I was disppointed to learn that it only works on 8-bit files.

Thanks,
Chris

[webhamsterz]

maybe just use your eyes?

[mistermonday]

Chris, Welcome to Retouch Pro! If you have 200 photos which were taken in similar lighting conditions and both tone and color are good overall except for the baby whose skin is too red / magenta, then you may want to try a different approach and not get too hung up with the numbers.
If you are using any version of Photoshop, first add a Selective Color adjustment layer. Select the red channel and back down the Magenta slider. Usually in the area of 30% will do it. You may need to also move up the yellow slider just a little. You should find that you will very quickly find the right skin tone without getting the numbers to precise although you can certainly watch the numbers in the Info Palette.
If you find that the images are easily correctable in this manner, then I would procedd with the following:
Open the image again but this time do not create an adjustment layer. Instead do Image>Adjust>Selective Color. After you have moved the sliders, click the Save button to save your settings. Now you can create a little Action in PS to open an image, apply those settings using the Load Settings button and save the file.
You can then run the action on all 200 images in the folder and save them as COPIES (always archive the original camera images to guard against accidents). Now, you may find that not all of the 200 images worked out to your liking, but you may only have to redo a small number of them.

Finally, if you want to get into skin tones and numbers, there is a Skin Tone chart on RP here http://retouchpro.com/pages/colors.html
Regards, Murray

[switters]

Thank you very much, Murray. That's very helpful.

Chris

[Doug Nelson]

For anyone colorcorrecting skin I can't recommend Margulis' Professional Photoshop book strongly enough. A 5th edition is getting ready to ship in December, but even an old used copy will change how you work.

[johndiablo]

Easiest thing is to just find a decent stock image of a baby and sample the colours from that.