Senior Portrait Skin Tones

[RebelScum]

How do you feel about the skin tone in this image? This beauty is quite pale. I've already done some editing to it as it started off much more red than reality. Has it gone yellow or green? Does anyone have a surefire way to edit skin tones? I corrected in PS CS2 with a color adjustment and then a levels adjustment, but since I've got lots to edit, if anyone knows a faster way, I'd love to learn it!
And by the way, any other critique is perfectly welcome! I'm here to learn, not to be coddled!
EXIF:
Rebel XTi
50mm lens
Shutter 1/500 sec
f/3.2
ISO 400
No flash

[JFSanders]

You would have an easier time of it if you could write a batch job. The white balance looks off and this will kill the skin tones unless you are using a program that has a protect skin tones function. She is purple toned now.

In this edit, I set the black point and the white point because there are obvious parts that should be black (the camisole? bra) and white (the front of the top). This brought out the colors and also brought her back to pink skin. Being a true blonde (eye brows are blonde) she is going to be pink skinned. If she had too much sun during the shoot and she is too pink then you could go into the RGB channels and just reduce the red channel in very small increments until you get what you like. Then just write a script and batch the whole lot.

Jim

[NicolaB]

It is a lovely portrait with nice lighting and exposure.

Try using her eye whites as the start point for the WB. As Jim says, she is cool and needs warming up. Also have you noise software? This image cleans up really nicely.

[RebelScum]

Thank you so much for the help, Jim. I love how warm your edit was. Was that just done by setting the black and white points? Did you use a curves layer to achieve that effect?
Nicola, I don't have noise software. Do you think I need to invest in some? Do you think this image is too noisy as it is right now?
Thank you so much for your help!

[NicolaB]

CS2 has noise reduction
This edit is with noise run and wb adjusted. Let me know if you would rather I took the edit down.....

[RebelScum]

How did you set your black and white points? I think your edit is lovely! Did you use the curves layer to achieve this? Thanks for the tip about the noise filter in CS2!

[NicolaB]

Originally Posted by RebelScum

How did you set your black and white points? I think your edit is lovely! Did you use the curves layer to achieve this? Thanks for the tip about the noise filter in CS2!

I used the eye dropper on the whites of the eyes to get a near neutral point, then adjusted by eye. I moved the curve to medium contrast (I use LR) to give a little oomph

[RebelScum]

Thank you so much. I absolutely love your edit. My PS skills are kind of limited so I'll have to experiment with the eye dropper tool!

[JFSanders]

RS, I would suggest that you invest in Light Room and then use the plug in tools available for it. The learning curve is flat compared to CS/photoshop. What I did was set the white and black points which cured the coolness but left her skin in the pink range. Then I put a color control point on her face and reduced the red channel until the image looked good to me. I use Capture NX2 which is a Nikon product. But most folks use LR3 as it works for both Nikon and Canon and is pretty easy to learn.

While using the whites of the eyes is doable as the edit shows clearly, there can be trouble there if the person's eyes are truly white. This works almost always but you can find yourself in trouble with eyes that don't look natural if you aren't careful.

Jim

[RebelScum]

Excellent information. Thanks again for all your help!