How to get a natural skin tone?

H

Huy Vu

Veteran
One problem I noticed often when looking at other people's video, and a problem that I've been struggling with, is how to achieve a natural looking skin tone. In my footage, the actor always seem to have a reddish/orange cast on their skin. Manually white balancing doesn't make it go away and it's nearly impossible to CC it out. I shoot on the A1, but this is an issue that I've noted across all camcorders. All of the most film-like footage I've seen the actors have very natural looking skin, free of unnatural color cast. So I'm just wondering if anyone has any advice, either through tweaking the settings on the camera or otherwise, to let me get rid of this skin tone issue?

For illustration I've posted some ungraded grabs below which demonstrates the problem:

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Skin tone is the hardest for video to nail down. Panny gives people a yellow-plastic flesh tone. Sony makes people look like robots. Ikegami does a good job in the broadcast realm. Kodak does the best of all.

Alas, your only recourse is spend a lot of time with a good colorist and good color program. Try not to saturate too much.

-J
 
Thanks for the input J. I really doubt that the only recourse is to spend hours and hours in post. I've seen plenty of "test" footages from Disjecta that were pretty free of the color cast, and it's always eluded me how it is done. I try to keep the WB neutral, lower the saturation in camera and generally try to get as flat a picture as possible, but the skintone issue keeps popping up. It's too late to correct for my current project, but I would like to know what I'm doing wrong for future references.
 
What i have noticed most about fleshtones on film, is that due to the larger scale of latitude on film stock ( now with kodak vision 3 ) the lattitude is a slight bit more linear.

The skin always seems to be, if well lit, very soft appearing. Video tends to put more detail and harshen those areas. So what i try to do, with my Canon XH A1 and Letus extreme, is never over expose, and use curves and level adjustment in Premier Pro Cs3 to soften the skin tones to create something that resembles more film.

Here are two shots from the film "The Vaudeville Show", that were exposed beautifully by our DP Phil Dreher, and i just color graded them slightly to go for a more film quality.

There is no diffusion added to the second image. It is supposed to be slightly blue and low key. Notice on the second image, the skin quality especially where there are skin irritations ( pimples/acne ) on her chest. Exposing properly and bringing the mids up, then adjusting for brightness by bringing your whites down as well as your blacks, lets the skin soften up and appear more the way that it appears on film.


( Backstage of a club theater. )


Original:

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Modified:

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Thanks for the still, Papa!

I like the first one better, personally, as far as skin tones go. There's a VERY slight green, but it's not that unpleasant. The second, she looks a little lifeless.

A1 is dope.
 
Here is a better example, due to the more tungsten lighting ( to judge skin )

( One of the acts on stage during the film )

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Your second example definitely looks good Jonathan.

I'm with Kholi though about the first grabs. The first one seems to look more realistic.
 
The first grab is supposed to be somewhat desaturated and blue. It is the backstage of a club theatre and we're going after a dark blueish kind of look. Perhaps the mids are a little bit too high, i just found it to be very flattering on her skin, face and chest.
 
Huy,

Not many people have as critical en eye as you. That's a compliment. Best advice, shoot with a linear gamma, slightly desaturated, tungsten-ish lighting, perhaps a 1/4 black promist, hire a makeup artist that knows film *and* video makeup, and expect to tweek in post.

It's good to work with someone as concerned with the quality of image as you.

-Jay
 
PaPa said:
...bringing the mids up, then adjusting for brightness by bringing your whites down as well as your blacks, lets the skin soften up and appear more the way that it appears on film.
Click to expand...

Thanks Papa! I gave that a shot and it did helped. Not quite perfect, but bringing up the mid seems to "blast out" the red cast in their skin more. This helped a lot though!

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Am I missing something or are you chasing your tails? If you were just looking with your eyes (no camera) wouldn't someone outside at 12 noon have a natural skin tone? Or the same person next to a fireplace at night have a natural skin tone? Or the same person with a tan in all of these situations have a natural skin tone? What are you using, as a refernce, for natural?
 
what you're missing is the comparison between the way that film renders skin differently than video. I've seen enough of the two to know that they look quite different, and by playing with the video footage and doing the grading as i described, you bring the skin look more into the realm of the way it renders on film.
 
Papa's example from post #6 is actually a very good example of what I'm looking for. That is skin tone with no unnatural patches of coloration, despite the tungsten lighting. One thing I noticed in most indie film is that you often get patches of red/orange that shows on the talents's face, usually on their cheek or on their forehead. In the example I posted on top of the page, you can clearly see that my actor has a shade of pinkish tone all over his face. When I apply color correction, his face will become a warm shade throughout. This, more than anything else, completely ruins "the movie look" for me because it makes any color grading feels like you're draping a curtain of color across the scene, which is unnatural.

My goal is to arrive at a skin tone that's free from any color cast so that when I do use colored lighting or CC, it will complement rather than overwhelm their skin color.
 
PaPa said:
what you're missing is the comparison between the way that film renders skin differently than video. I've seen enough of the two to know that they look quite different, and by playing with the video footage and doing the grading as i described, you bring the skin look more into the realm of the way it renders on film.
Click to expand...

Ok. But what are using as a reference? Different film stock and manufacturers render colors differently also.
 
Gary:

I am refering to 16mm kodak vision 2 and vision 3 stock. Everything from 200 ASA to 500 ASA.

what would be nice is to have the same frame taken in digital and on film, and then use it to show the differences in how it effects skin tones at different levels of exposure.

This, to a certain degree, is what i've been doing when we digitize our footage and Avid it up. It also allows me to put in some digital stuff for ocmparison, and it is from this that i've drawn my conclusions. But they are only mine.
 
what it looks like is your mixing color tempratures.

Cinematography isn't just setting exposure and lenses, you gotta keep an eye on color sources and reflected light (spill). if someone is standing near a Red car there will be a red cast on their skin. Get me? If they are standing on green grass...... Etc....

Be very specific. Using rosco CTB filter kits on tungsten light to mix with daylight doesnt always work, thats why they include 1/8th CTB's. to match exactly the color of the daylight your working with. Also get some 1/8th Minus Green, (magenta) gels. this will help match Kino's or other flourescant sources to tungsten better.
 
color is definitely an issue that needs to be checked out when working against skin, but the issues i am trying to address are less of the skin color and more of the skin softness that film is so good at doing.
 
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