Why does the skin turn ORANGE in color???

Hi Guys,

this problem has been bugging me for a while and I can't seem to figure it out.

whenever i take pictures on a bright day and I use a flash for fill the subject's skin always seem to turn orange like this:Attachment 204

shot seetings were ISO 50, whitebalance was set to 5200K.

After post process here is what I get:
Attachment 205

I adjusted only the WB to a setting of around 4400K during post to get second image.

I could easily correct it during post, but is there a certain technique wherein I can take these photos without my people turning orange..???

thanks for looking!!!

james

You could use a gray card and set a custom white balance at the time of capture.

hi sean.... so you are suggesting that my problem points to the fact that my WB setiing is off/not accurate to the lighting?? HMMMM come to think of it I did set my WB under different lighting.

Would a grey card be more accurate than using the liveview mode in the setting of WB????

This is Canon colors! :-) It is supposed to look like that. Actually I dont think #1 is that bad. It has a warm glow to it whereas #2 is more neutral. It is a matter of taste of course.

You can do a lot without any PP. You have to set a custom white balance, and you could also use white balance shift in the menu to further dial inn the skin tone you prefer. Save the settings in MyMenu or write it down. That is your options.

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Originally Posted by jks_photo

Would a grey card be more accurate than using the liveview mode in the setting of WB????

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If you dont have a grey card use the screen and dial inn whatever you prefer. The screen is accurate.

hi johnny... so i'm not really lacking in technique in getting the correct WB but am negligent that I forgot to re-set the WB d]in accordance with he change in lighting

Yes, always adjust WB when you see a change in lighting. It is also a matter of taste. Sometimes "true" colors/WB can be boring and a little warm-up of the colors can look nice. If you go to Vimeo.com you will find many nice tutorials. They are for video but the same principles goes for stills of course.

PS! This one http://vimeo.com/28669523 is great. You can do a lot without a grey card, just using live view.

Don't forget to gel your flashes too. Until they come out with an adjustable white point flash, it would make it hard to fix two different colored light sources.. not saying that's the case here, but it's a good time to mention it while it popped in my head.
As mentioned, the picture is just warm all over from having the wrong WB. Canon does a great job getting it right when outdoors and set to AWB, but for consistency sake (and because I don't know what the camera is picking which would be a good feature) I just set the WB manually and do a slight group edit in post. It's easy to blow out the red channel though and that messes up the skin real bad.

Liked the video Johnny. Still wish they had an overlay screen in liveview for white balance shift.

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Originally Posted by andnowimbroke

..wish they had an overlay screen in liveview for white balance shift.

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Agree. That would be a really nice feature. We should send a wish list to Chuch Westfall :-)

Being lazy by asking rather than investigating this myself, but I do have a ColorRight WB tool, which works like a gray card for setting custom WB except you place it over your lens and take a shot, and it hashes the incoming light to 18% gray. It's been gathering dust since I started shooting RAW and just adjusting WB in post. My question is, if you set a Custom WB in-camera, shoot RAW, and open that RAW file in a 3rd party converter (DxO, LR3, etc.), will that 3rd party converter use the custom WB? I'm guessing the answer is yes, since they use what's stored by Auto as the shot settings, but confirmation would be nice.

Yesterday, I was shooting in a courtroom with horrible mixed lighting. Fortunately, being a courtroom there was white paper laying around that served for a WB reference in post. But I might bust out the ColorRight again and try custom WB for RAW shooting - in some settings, that might give better results than guessing in post.

@Jonnhy I'll have to check the papers, but I don't think I can legally communicate with Chuck in any form for another five years. I didn't think a 100mm macro lens would be considered "stalking" length. As a side note, he does have really nice pores.

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Originally Posted by neuroanatomist

will that 3rd party converter use the custom WB? I'm guessing the answer is yes, since they use what's stored by Auto as the shot settings, but confirmation would be nice.

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Yes. In LR3 it's listed as "As Shot" in the list of WB options and is there by default when the raw is opened.

Thanks, Rocco!

hi neuro,

you mentioned the Clor rightwb tool you place over the lens how would this compare to the GF lightsphere domes, whereby you putthe white/standard lightsphere dome over the lens and takea shot.....Would you say that they operate in somewhat same principle? Or would the Color Right give better more accurate results???

Same principle, although the Colorright is hashing to gray instead of white.