Work of a PRO. How do you achieve these skin tones

[jacksonw]

I'm wondering if the experts can point me in the right direction on how to effectively achieve these SKIN TONES. All things considered, in-camera exposure and great lighting, I don't have any issues with skin detail or D&B either. Obviously these are the work of a working pro...Commercial grade.

From the onset, I thought it maybe a film emulsion kind of filter but looking at the images carefully there seem not to be any obvious global color cast. They are not film scans either. All shot digitally. The skin tones all have some warm/tan but maintaining vivid colors in everything else. I tried working with the color balance and Hue/Sat layers but I'm not getting any where close.

Can you help?

[lee barnes]

Re: Work of a PRO. How do you achieve these skin t

Some overlay was applied to the skin to give golden tan effect.

[Tony W]

Re: Work of a PRO. How do you achieve these skin t

Please post your starting point image. This will at least assist others in offering some suggestions on how to proceed

[jacksonw]

Re: Work of a PRO. How do you achieve these skin t

Please post your starting point image. This will at least assist others in offering some suggestions on how to proceed

Unfortunately emailing the photographer in question to ask her for the original images is not going to work. I don't think you understood my post....

[Tony W]

Re: Work of a PRO. How do you achieve these skin t

I do not think that you actually understood the point of my post.

You stated "I tried working with the color balance and Hue/Sat layers but I'm not getting any where close". The inference being that you worked on an image (which must be assumed to be yours!) which started out far removed from the examples you posted

We know from the posted examples what you want to end up with but need to see from what point you are starting. There are many ways to achieve similar effects so seeing where you are starting from is important.

TBH, the images posted do not to me at least look to be the work of a pro or 'commercial grade' unless the intention was to show some happy holiday snap effect - all in the eye of the beholder of course and YMMV

[jacksonw]

Re: Work of a PRO. How do you achieve these skin t

TBH, the images posted do not to me at least look to be the work of a pro or 'commercial grade' unless the intention was to show some happy holiday snap effect - all in the eye of the beholder of course and YMMV

Why are you attacking someone's work? She's actually a very successful commercial photographer. It seems to me your knowledge about commercial photography is very limited...or lack thereof.

Let's be mature about this.

IF anyone needs a file to work with see attached image, courtesy of http://www.sxc.hu/

[AKMac]

Re: Work of a PRO. How do you achieve these skin t

Why do you have a problem with presenting your original image, as Tony W rightly suggested? It seems you expect help from others without providing any yourself. And then you respond to reasonable observations in an aggressive way.

[Tony W]

Re: Work of a PRO. How do you achieve these skin t

Why are you attacking someone's work? She's actually a very successful commercial photographer.

Why do you see my reply as attacking someones work? My opinion remains about the example images you posted whoever the photographer is. If you had read the comments about the photographers intent "unless the intention was to show some happy holiday snap effect" you should have understood!

It was you that made the comments 'commercial grade and pro' and presented these particular images. As a matter of interest who is the photographer?

It seems to me your knowledge about commercial photography is very limited...or lack thereof.

Why do you now decide to try and attack me with suggestions of limited knowledge of commercial photography . You have no idea of the depth of experience of either me or anyone else on this forum and I am certainly not going to post a CV for your approval.

Let's be mature about this.

You will have to prove that you can be mature about this first

In a last attempt to be helpful have a look at these tutorials, the first of which should get you to where you want to be

http://jerseys4kidscom.hubpages.com/hub/Photoshop-Lesson-How-To-Change-Skin-Color-Edit-Skin-Tone

http://blog.advancedphotoshop.co.uk/tutorials/quick-trick-mimic-golden-skin/

[jacksonw]

Re: Work of a PRO. How do you achieve these skin t

Tony W,

My apologies if I came across as aggressive!

Cheers

[Tony W]

Re: Work of a PRO. How do you achieve these skin t

Tony W,

My apologies if I came across as aggressive!

Cheers

Apology accepted - lets move on.

Dont take this the wrong way but you posted some images directly without reference to the photographer. Most commercial photographers would be most upset to find their images posted anywhere but where they have given express permission and at least in theory could hold you liable for copyright infringement.
Just so you are aware for the future:
Copyrighted images cannot be posted without explicit permission from the copyright owner. You are responsible for obtaining any necessary permissions for images you upload, and you are liable should anyone choose to enforce their copyright or likeness rights.

I believe that it should be perfectly acceptable to post a link to a photographers website and mention the images you are interested in.

Getting back to the images as posted. Did the links I post offer any insight?

As stated there are many ways that the effect could be achieved - just some I can think of immediately:

1. In camera controls. Many modern DSLR's offer some form of picture control including things such as Vivid (Nikon) which gives a more highly saturated rendering. Usually applied to Jpegs but also available in the raw converter

2. The first image of a lady dangling a child could conceivably have been produced without much pp. Overcast lighting on well tanned caucasian skin can produce this type of result

3. In PS and ACR the effect could be achieved in any of the following plus those I have missed
Curves
HSL
Selective Colour
Colour Balance
Gradient mapping
Photo Filter
Apply image
etc.
All would require some masking to protect other than skin tones.

[Pics2]

Re: Work of a PRO. How do you achieve these skin t

This type of lifestyle shooting (snap effect) is very popular among stock photographers, like Yuri Arcurs. Buyers are now looking for natural looking models, spontaneous situations. I guess this photographer is one of these lifestyle stock shooters. It looks like she nailed it. Very often there is not much pp, mostly few simple actions. These are mass productions, no time for precise pp or any detailed retouching, masking etc.

[Cjay]

Re: Work of a PRO. How do you achieve these skin t

In "my opinion" it does not seem to be work of a pro or commercial grade either. There are many ways to achieve these results, but looks to me as though they were arrived at through a combo of different techniques. The techniques used to get these effects though would greatly depend on the original images. Some images would be as simple as changing saturation with masks while others would require further procedures.

[artofretouching]

Re: Work of a PRO. How do you achieve these skin t

This quickly turned into a touchy thread. But back to the original question, I just matched with a skin mask, and applied curves (contrast), warming filter set to saturate (golden tone), and selective color for neutrals (to fine tune the tan color). Took me longer to type this reply, than it did to do it. The "professional" part is irrelevant.

Everybody, have a nice day.

[oneredpanther]

Re: Work of a PRO. How do you achieve these skin t

Instagram can do this easily.