I've had my Canon 10D for some time, and I thought I had color correction down. Accurate highlights, neutrals, and shadow points.
Then I run into this portrait photgrapher who's been doing this for over 50 years and has done everything from sports photography with a 4x5. (1 shot every 30 seconds!), to top secret photos for the Pentagon, to family pictures that would jerk a tear. He takes one look at my pictures and says the skin tones horrible.
Of course, being an engineer, I know that I adjusted everything properly. It's "accurate". He says, it's not about accuracy, it's about flattery when it come to skin tones. "Peaches and cream" skin tones is what he says.
So this may sound like a thread for the edit forum, but this guy thinks that perhaps the Canon sensor just isn't capable of producing pleasant skin tones. He has a Fuji S2 that get these pleasant skin tones straight out of the camera (provided he sets all the goofy options correctly. And believe me, even he thinks the "wordage" they use to define the options are very odd). Nevertheless, he seems to be much more efficient at getting sellable images from his camera. In fact, most of the time he takes the card straight from the camera and just sticks it in the Compact flash slot of his printer and prints it out! And on the other desk he has his massive Epson Wide format 7600 waiting to do the bigger jobs.
In an effort to learn from a veteran, I took some test prints home from his camera and have been working at trying to get similar skin tones from my Canon pics. I think him and I will be doing some side by side comparisons soon.
So what do you all think about Canon and the skin tones? Is everyone satisfied? Is this just some old fashioned guy's way of thinking about skin tones? Or is there some truth to this. I was hoping some of you experienced Canon users might have some insight to this topic.
Any feedback GREATLY appreciate, especially since this guy is consistently hammering me about skin tones. I want to get it right, but it just doesn't make sense to me that Canon sensors can be the problem.
I disagree that the Canon sensor (even the 10D) isn't good at reproducing skin tones. There are so many variables involved, from the glass you shoot with, the way you paint with light, how your profiles are calibrated, your exposure, every detail is an essential step towards a beautiful capture.
It's not the camera, lens, lighting or software (or film/processing) that makes a good image. Instead, it's you manipulating each element to get the results you desire. You can get great skin tones with an Oylmpus Stylus if you know how...
Heheh...good topic BTW...it's true...Gochgogi is correct as usual...I'm finding truly accurate skin tones are not what people actually like because it's too pale most times...they see themselves with and demand a more colorful although inaccurate skin tone...a warmer more saturated look that is not magenta as more pleasing. It's the main reason I "went to the dogs"
How right you are Larry. When I first started shooting with a 1D, I thought the skin tones where awful. I was comparing a shot of my son that I had done in my studio with a school portrait he had taken a few years earlier. Even though my shot was much better technically, I liked the skin tone better on the school shot.
When my wife looked at both shots, she was the one who said "that school shot looks nice, but you know Johnny's skin is not really that color" & she was right. When my son came home from school, I looked at him & both pictures & mine was almost perfectly accurate as to what he really looked like.
I opened my shot in Photoshop & warmed it up some & it certainly did look more pleasing to the eye, so I decided total accuracy is not really what you want for people shots.
I sometimes wonder if somehow a camera like the Fuji S2 is mapping colors in a way that provides more pleasing skin tones. I also heard a comment from a Canon 1D MKII user, on this forum, that he was getting purple bloches in the skin. At ISO 800, on my 10D, zooming in on the skin, there definitely seems to be speckles of color in the skin tones. I wonder if Canon color noise is perhaps biased towards adding blue or magenta.
Edited by roblumba on May 23, 2004 at 06:47 AM GMT
>>When I first started shooting with a 1D, I thought the skin tones where awful. I was comparing a shot of my son that I had done in my studio with a school portrait he had taken a few years earlier. <<
The 1D produces the worst skin tones, the worst color, of any of the Canon cmaeras I've used. The 1DS skin tones blow away any other camera I've ever used, including Fuji.
Here's with a little saturation adjustment to warm it up even more. I still want to do a more thorough side by side comparison. But the original picture above already looks okay to my eyes. Let me know what you think.
JoeArndt wrote:
The 1D produces the worst skin tones, the worst color, of any of the Canon cmaeras I've used. The 1DS skin tones blow away any other camera I've ever used, including Fuji.
I prefer the default skin tone of the new MK II to the 1Ds I used to own.
Shooting on pair of 1D bodies, Raw and Color Matrix 3. Looks great to me -clients' like the images, too. Skin color is the most "subjctive" evaluation we make - many times I think we like what we get used to! The S-2 does produce nice 'skin tones' - is it better than Cannon? I don't see it - but maybe others do. If you are happy with your results and your clients are happy too - I wouldn't go nuts about this! Don't waste time trying to please your critics - Ultimately you need only to please your clients - not someone that may have a biased point of view. keep in focus Ed K.
On the same note, someone else posted this before - both of us haven't had been able to get skin tones the same way as what we had obtained previously when using film. Go and check your 4x6 prints from Walmart - skin tones from prints from film cameras (even p&s) look decidedly better to me than any kind of post-processing that I have been able to do on digital, especially flash pictures. The Fuji S2 comes closer in producing pleasing flesh colors, but its a tad oversaturated to me.
I liken it to some kind of Kodak magic - even a Kodak digital P&S is able to achieve a much better skin tone than most Canon digital P&S I've used and seen before. Their "Color-Science" technology is perhaps superior to Digic when it comes to skin tones. A pity they are targetting the low-end market and have lousy firmware capabilities (like the 14/n), otherwise I'm sure many film-lovers would love the colors they can get from the Kodak P&Ses.
There's also the question of *whose* skin tone. PhaseOne's Portrait One bundle includes "skin tone" ICC's that are optimized for different ethnicities.
The correct skin tone to me is a very subjective matter, probably just a perception at best. I do not even remember my own skin tone. I know it's different at different situations and moods.
"I liken it to some kind of Kodak magic - even a Kodak digital P&S is able to achieve a much better skin tone than most Canon digital P&S I've used and seen before."
"There's also the question of *whose* skin tone. PhaseOne's Portrait One bundle includes "skin tone" ICC's that are optimized for different ethnicities."
"The correct skin tone to me is a very subjective matter, probably just a perception at best. I do not even remember my own skin tone. I know it's different at different situations and moods."
Different ethnic groups show different biases in their choices for photo skin tone (Phase One has some smart cookies!). I doubt that the Kodak "magic" appeals as much to Tokyo residents as to Angelinos (or whatever). Certainly complete accuracy is not always the ideal for portraits, and the mode of "bending" the colors is a matter of personal choice, which should be yours if you want to satisfy yourself, and your client's if you want to sell prints. Peaches and Cream is great for some complexions, and completely wrong for others.
