Orangely "golden hour" direct sun and skylight can create a wicked WB combination. I think we naturally compensate so we don't see the problems presented to the sensor until we pull up the photo on our computer.
Triple Bingo!!!!(?)
Lots of good advice here from you folks. Quite an education for poor newbie-shoot-in-the-woods-and-struggle-with-the-skin-tones me.
Scott
We perceive a shirt as white in daylight/tungsten/fluorescent because our brains think it's white and adapt our color perception to make it so, but also with the assumption the lighting is "neutral".
In a situation like the golden hour the brain doesn't expect the white shirt and face above it to look the same as noon on a clear day in the sun. But how we perceive the shirt and face isn't the same as how a camera set to Daylight WB records it. What we perceive in person in most cases winds up somewhere between noon day neutral and how the camera set to Daylight WB records it.
The camera records the entire frame with the same WB baseline. But our vision is more selective. If looking down a beach and seeing people at a distance perception will be keyed to the overall context of the scene. But if you are very close to a person and focused on them the brain knowing what "normal" skin tones look like will selectively adapt perception to "normalize" the face. If you look back and forth at background then face the brain will adapt the color balance.
That way the camera capturing it from the baseline of noon day sun records ambience similar to what I'm perceiving in person. In the shot above the warmth of the sunset in the background and the cooler tone of the foreground because all the light there is coming from the skylight.
But if I'm shooting a person in the foreground with the sunset in the background, understanding that my brain in person is normalizing the face in my perception of it differently than the camera I light the face with neutral WB set off a gray card to make in look normal. Before anyone's sphincter puckers, please understand that's not how I make it look in the final result, it's simply a process control baseline.
If I set Custom WB with my speedlights and DIY diffusers the color temp winds up very close to the Daylight WB setting on the camera because the white foam sheets warm the light by about 600°K from the normally cooler flash color temp. So what I wind up doing is shooting the background from about the same Daylight WB baseline I'd use in a scenic, but with the face normal instead of underexposed and blue as in the scenic shot above. I'll also shoot a test shot of the person holding my reference target.
Then in PP I do the same thing I'd do with a studio lit shot. I open the test shot in ACR and adjust the test shot until it looks "right" by eye. For a studio lit shot I use the Camera Profile tab in ACR to adjust skin tone without changing neutrals, but in the case of a sunset shot I first adjust temperature.
This is where what I do should begin to make sense.
If shot without flash with Daylight WB the face lit by the skylight would be cooler than neutral and look out of context with the warm sunset. Shooting with flash and Custom WB with my diffusers I keep the background warm but make the face neutral. Then in PP I shift the overall WB warmer with the temperature adjustment of ACR. That warms the face, and warms the sunset. It's not the actual lighting conditions, but it's what the brain expects to see—warm sunset, warmer than normal face.
The light on the face would actually be cool because it's lit by the sky, but perceptually given the way the brain adapts that's what it tells us we are seeing. How do I know this? I have a condo across the road from the beach where that photo was taken and every morning and evening when I'm there I walk to the beach and enjoy the golden hour. Over the years I've taken enough photos enough different ways to figure out ways to figure out why what was in my photos didn't match what I remembered seeing for scenic and people shots, and make what is in the photos I take match what I remember seeing
dmacmillan wrote:
Agreed. You certainly have the knowledge and skills to fix problems, as evidenced with your correction, which I think was the best fix of those presented.
Thanks. I don't try for accuracy in skin tone. I try for pleasing. Years ago, working as a portrait photog, I learned people wanted pleasing color rather than accurate color.
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