Skin Tone & Exposure

[GrandmaBev]

What are your thoughts on this photo as far as skin tone and exposure? It was taken in our "basement studio" using two background lights and two front lights. One with an umbrella to camera left and another bouncing off the ceiling.



Nkon D80
1/125
Exposure Manual
f/8.0
ISO 200
Focal Length 44mm
Spot Metering

[daddyoproductions]

I think it's completely fabulous and if I was the mom I'd be crying! The kids look nice and pink and it doesn't seem blown out...though I am far from an expert in anything. My kids are like Casper and I struggle to give them any colour...nice job!
~C
Now that I'm thinking on't, maybe a bit of a contrast boost? Just to see? But then I'm big on big contrast...

[Hartzler]

In terms of skin and exposure, it looks good to me. It's so hard to get fair skin right. Beautifully composed.

[ttosifa]

Cute picture!

A couple of things:

You are a tiny bit overexposed -- bits of the red channel are blown in the faces. Nothing major though. I set my Nikon to display red blinkies if I am blowing out the reds. Sometimes even just 1/3 stop will make a difference.

You've also got light bouncing off the background back onto the camera lens. This is washing out the picture, reducing contrast. You can reduce/avoid this by blocking the light coming back to the lens and/or changing the angle of the lights. (I started this sentence thinking I had three ways, but seem to have forgotten the third.)

EDIT: You can see the difference it would make by doing the opposite of the technique in the levels adjustment I mentioned in an earlier thread by you. Use the blacks slider instead while pressing option -- now you'll get a white screen. Move the slider right until colors start appearing, and that's when you know you are clipping the blacks in those color channels.

As for color, the CMYK numbers suggest the skin is a tad yellow, but people often like their skin tones in pictures a bit on the warm side of reality.

And a minor thing: You are shooting in a studio and, at your settings, are apparently not using ambient light in this picture. I would personally set the shutter speed to max sync (maybe 1/250 on your camera, but I don't know) to avoid as much ambient light contamination as possible.

[GrandmaBev]

Thank you for your comments. This was the ONLY shot we got off with the two grandkids. The two year old was constantly on the move!

I tweaked it in Lightroom and I'm very much of a novice in that program. I will play with the contrast and exposure.

We have set up the two background lights behind bifold doors as described by Zack Arias in his tutorial on white backgrounds, but have had a constant problem with the light from the background. I will try changing the angle of the lights....does any angle work better or is it just trial and error? Unfortunately, I am limited in the distance I can move the subjects away from the background.

Thanks for the tidbits about sycn speed and the levels adjustment....I'll give it a try.

[dblightsey]

I absolutely love this shot.Well done.

[sdstone00]

Originally Posted by GrandmaBev

We have set up the two background lights behind bifold doors as described by Zack Arias in his tutorial on white backgrounds, but have had a constant problem with the light from the background. I will try changing the angle of the lights....does any angle work better or is it just trial and error? Unfortunately, I am limited in the distance I can move the subjects away from the background..

Take a look at this link on Zack's website. You may have already seen this, but the way he shows how to deal with light wrap from the background was very informative.

[Benji]

Yup, overexposed by about1/3rd of a stop. The highest "R" reading in Info in Photoshop on the brightest diffused highlight on the face of the subject should be 240. You have 254 If this was shot in Raw redo it in ACR and back the exposure off 1/3rd of a stop.

Benji