How completely sweet is this portrait? Putting a precious, pink girl in front of beautiful pink flowering bushes = brilliant!!
Ok, the problems ... and there are only a couple. One is the pink/yellow color cast on her face that we need to correct (because, unlike film, digital pictures pick up the dominant color and spread it across everything). The second issue is the "noise." This picture was shot with a Canon Rebel xt at 1600 iso, 55mm, f/5.6, 1/200 second. I'm gonna go out on a limb here and suggest that most cameras can't handle 1600 iso. Even my yummy, deluxe-y camera doesn't do 1600 iso particularly well, and I ONLY use it when I have to (ie. at my son's school production where flash was prohibited). And even then, I know that I'm probably going to get a crappy, noisy image that can't really be blown up or maybe even printed. That said, I'm surprised how well the Rebel handled 1600 iso in this particular image. It actually looks pretty good. But it is a bit noisy and there is no eye detail that can be recovered. So, the question is: did 1600 iso NEED to be used in this instance. The answer is: no. Better camera settings for this situation would have been 800 iso, 1/100 second or maybe even 400 iso, 1/50 second (the aperture is already wide open, otherwise it would have been prudent to open up the aperture to something wider).
So, on to my fix. I'll start first with the color cast. Here is a tremendously wonderful link from SmugMug with succinct details about how to get pleasing skin tones:
Getting Pleasing Skin Tones
Software Used: Lightroom 2.2 (LR), Photoshop CS3 (PS)
Actions Used: Pioneer Woman (PW), Totally Rad (TRA), Red Leaf Studio (RLS)
Prep Work: I added some blue to the white balance in LR (to balance out the yellows) and cropped out a couple tiny crumbs.
2. In PS, I lasso'd the face, did a curves adjustment layer, bumping the midtones.
3. Lasso'd the eyes and bridge of nose and bumped the midtones further in another curves adjustment layer.
4. To color correct the skin, I lasso'd the face/arm and created a selective color adjustment layer. In that layer I chose the "reds" and adjusted -20 magenta, -25 yellow, +18 black. After these adjustments (and during!) I checked my CYMK numbers in the information box. I was left with the following numbers (when sampling the right cheek): C(yan) 18, M(agenta) 36, Y(ellow) 40. (to see what all that means and to see the information box in action, read the link above!)
5. I did a levels adjustment layer, pulling in both ends to increase contrast. I masked off the face.
6. Lastly, I used Bring on the Eyes (PW) action.
7. If I were more accomplished, I would also use some sort of noise reduction process. But I'm not noise-reduction-savvy yet, so that will have to wait for another day.
So, the best tips I have to offer today: bookmark the skin tones link above (you might be happy to have that someday) and don't shoot at 1600 iso if you don't HAVE to. Happy Friday, everyone!
