Unnatural Skin Tones

B

bazza

Active member
Being used to punchy, colourful images from my XL1-S I was initially dismayed at the XH-A1’s soft, dull picture out of the box. Shooting mainly weddings I’ve toned down VIVIDRGB to my own preferences i.e. VIVIDBW:
Gamma: Cine1
Color Matrix: Normal
Color Gain: Color Phase: -1
Knee: Low
Black: Middle
Master Ped: -4
Setup Level: 0
HDF: High
H/V Detail: 0
Sharpness: 3
NR1: Off
NR2: Off
Coring: 0
Red Gain: -4
Green Gain: +1
Blue Gain: -4
RG Matrix: 0
RB Matrix: 0
GR Matrix: 0
GB Matrix: 7
BR Matrix: 0
BG Matrix: -12

Although I’m only using SD mode for now I can get great, detailed images in good light with fairly natural colours. However I can’t get away from a problem with unnatural skin tones that gets worse as light decreases! It’s a kind of brown/pink/gingery bloom on skin like bad tanning lotion. Sometimes it casts the whole picture. It’s difficult to describe so a typical image is at http://www.bwvideofilms.co.uk/savill_test.jpg
I also use an adapted setting for low light but can’t get seem to get away from the problem even in post-production. Problem is I’m just doing trial and error tweaking without understanding all the parameters. I realise it has a skin detection facility but this appears only to soften details and can’t change the colour balance on skin – or am I mistaken?

I’d appreciate any comments or clues please?
 
I've encountered that as well and it's a common problem under lowlight/overcast conditions. I can correct it to a point using Premiere's Fast Color corrector and push the color wheel slightly toward the green. This cleans up the unnatural pink cast on their skin.
 
Skin DTL function will smooth anything within a certain skin tone range (that you can preselect). Has worked fine for me.
 
I don't want to smooth the skin, in fact sometimes it tends to look a bit pasty! It's the colour that isn't right and I'm not clear whether the skin dtl function can be used to change colour rather than detail.
 
I'm familiar with what you are talking about, but I don't think the grab you posted has bad skin color.
 
The XL2 also does exactly what you describe - pasty pink faces especially indoors. I've been considering upgrading to the A1 but it does not fill me much confidence to hear that this too suffers from the same probleml!!

It's funny how many people are not bothered by it - personally I absolutely loathe that pink hue - it is a real pain when your'e trying to match footage with a DVX.
 
Exactly! I kept my XL2 just two weeks before returning it for a refund. Soft grey image, pasty bright pink faces and awful noisy low light. This on top of the most cumbersome front heavy ergonomics. Certainly for weddings it was useless. It was a sad let down after the great XL1 series.

The A1 does have this tendency on skin tones which may be in its genes! But it's nowhere near as bad as the XL2.

Actually, viewing the images now on my brand new Hanns-G monitors which have icy white, clear images the skin colour looks much better! I'm wondering now about my Sony MFM-HT205 LCD display, compared to the Hanns-G I realise the picture does have a slight pink hue which doesn't help. For some strange reason you can only adjust the Sony colour temperature in the NTSC version. Too bad for us PAL people.
 
bballplaya283 said:
I'm familiar with what you are talking about, but I don't think the grab you posted has bad skin color.
Click to expand...

Looks OK on my PC monitor as well. If the people are not supposed to look so tanned, maybe the red saturation is a bit high?

You know there is a Color Correction function in the A1 menus somewhere? I have never used it, but it is supposed to allow you to select a colour range and make adjustments to just that range in-camera.
 
Last edited:
That's more like it, I think this is progress! I didn't realise it could do this. I've just tweaked down the red phase colour area of my own face to take away my permatan. But I always find it near impossible to simulate battle conditions at home so I'm trying it out at this afternoon's wedding. Today is very bright, low Autumn sunshine, an old church and a dark oak panelled reception hall. That lot should test it out. Thanks for the tips.
 
bazza said:
That's more like it, I think this is progress! I didn't realise it could do this. I've just tweaked down the red phase colour area of my own face to take away my permatan. But I always find it near impossible to simulate battle conditions at home so I'm trying it out at this afternoon's wedding. Today is very bright, low Autumn sunshine, an old church and a dark oak panelled reception hall. That lot should test it out. Thanks for the tips.
Click to expand...

One further tip. The "fake" skin tones can actully look better than the real thing, especially when the subject is in an intemperate climate (AKA UK ha ha). It might be worth considering shooting with a more flattering setting, and then adjusting in post if it is too much. You customers might not thank you for being super accurate in this regard, but of course this depends on who your customers are, and you are the best one to judge.
 
jaegersing said:
One further tip. The "fake" skin tones can actully look better than the real thing, especially when the subject is in an intemperate climate (AKA UK ha ha). It might be worth considering shooting with a more flattering setting, and then adjusting in post if it is too much. You customers might not thank you for being super accurate in this regard, but of course this depends on who your customers are, and you are the best one to judge.
Click to expand...

I'm really pleased with the post-tweak results from Saturday's wedding thanks. Not perfect yet but getting there. I haven't downloaded the clips yet so can't post any stills for a while but yes, I'm on the right track now. The low, harsh autumnal sun really made the faces glow and mostly they have come out excellent. Trouble with weddings is that conditions are constantly changing and you could spend all your time switching between settings and miss shots, so some compromise must be made.

Not sure I follow the "fake" tip though - what do you mean by a more flattering setting?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top