Correcting an 'Orange' Skin Tone

[r]Evolution wrote on 8/8/2003, 1:03 AM

Does anyone have any experience correcting the skin tone?

We lit her WITHOUT a soft box in front of a GreenScreen but her skin tone looks to be ORANGEish. Maybe it was because we used the wrong type of lights. We shot indoors and used some 350's & a 650 Halogen's set to full flood on her and the GreenScreen (lit seperately). We shot on an XL1S. This is an 'Industrial' type video.

We also allowed some outside light to hit her face. (Was this a mistake?)

Any suggestions on how to make her look more 'naturally' lit During Production?
Any suggestions on how to make her look more 'naturally' lit During Post?

Thanks in Advance,
Lamont

Comments

FuTz wrote on 8/8/2003, 11:55 AM

www.wideopenwest.com

cheers

mcgeedo wrote on 8/8/2003, 12:55 PM

OK, fUtZ, I just have to ask... what does that have to do with orange skin??? :-)

Jsnkc wrote on 8/8/2003, 1:25 PM

I hope you're trying to put her in front of some of my background loops :)

Jason Casey
J.C. Media Services

filmy wrote on 8/8/2003, 1:34 PM

I think fUtZ meant this:

http://www.wideopenwest.com/%7Ewvg/tutorial-menu.htm

Just that fUtZ forgot the rest of Billy Boys link. Around here Billy Boy is sort of the resident VV colorist wiz. Even if he doesn't think of himself as a 'colorist' ;)

[r]Evolution wrote on 8/8/2003, 10:00 PM

Thanks for the link guys. I'm trying to learn but being thrown to the wolves at my work did not help. Basically I'm in IT support and a VEGAS hobbyist. My boss came to me after seeing some of my work and said do you think you can do this? I said I don't see why not, and the rest is history. He gave me a project of doing 13 realtor videos. Needless to say, I'm soooo stressed about making it perfect. If I can pull it off he is budgeting $20k towards a mini Production/Post studio. He wants to outfit it with AVID or FCP. I want VEGAS.

And Jason... you know I am brotha! You hooked me up PHAT! I only wish you had more volumes.

Lamont

BillyBoy wrote on 8/9/2003, 12:30 AM

Orangish skin tone can usually be improved quickly but increasing gamma/gain and perhaps dropping hue a bit all with the color corrector filter. If the rest of image isn't too orange to avoid messing everything else up use secondary color corrector, masking the skin and adjust the gain/hue on that color wheel.

I've had good success taking absolutely ruined source video and bringing it back to life. For example the other day a source was very blue. So blue the skin tone looked like the people were put in a deep freeze and froze solid.

In such an extreme case using the color corrector alone won't work. You first need to use color curves and adjust ONLY one curve, in this case the blue one and pull it far from where is was to restore to something approaching normal. Then use the color corrector.

The trick in this case is when you first drop the color curve filter on the event select the color you need to adjust the most first leaving all channels showing. Ajust to get rid of blue cast, then select the opposite in this case red and then you'll see seperate curves in one filter in the work space so you know how far you've gone from default.

farss wrote on 8/9/2003, 12:46 AM

Dennis, to get back to the source of your problem, you were mixing lighting of different color temperature which is usually not a good idea, natural light is much bluer than tungsten or halogen lights, probably the camera saw the natural light and did a white balance against this. But the lights you were using lit her face up comparitively orange.

As BillBoy has said with a bit of work it should be fixable but its still a good thing not to have to do. My preference is always for studio fluro lighting with daylight tubes. It certainly doesn't have the punch of halogen but there's much less heat and much less blinding of the talent.

FuTz wrote on 8/9/2003, 3:12 AM

Sorry, that's exactly what I meant (filmy's post).
Billyboy's tutorials about correction...

Jsnkc wrote on 8/9/2003, 10:45 AM

That's funny, I just finished editing a 72 Hour Realtors Video course.

I'm working on Volume 3 now and I hope to have it available within the next couple months. I will let you know when it is avaialbe!

JHendrix wrote on 1/14/2021, 4:04 PM

Orangish skin tone can usually be improved quickly but increasing gamma/gain and perhaps dropping hue a bit all with the color corrector filter. If the rest of image isn't too orange to avoid messing everything else up use secondary color corrector, masking the skin and adjust the gain/hue on that color wheel.

I've had good success taking absolutely ruined source video and bringing it back to life. For example the other day a source was very blue. So blue the skin tone looked like the people were put in a deep freeze and froze solid.

In such an extreme case using the color corrector alone won't work. You first need to use color curves and adjust ONLY one curve, in this case the blue one and pull it far from where is was to restore to something approaching normal. Then use the color corrector.

The trick in this case is when you first drop the color curve filter on the event select the color you need to adjust the most first leaving all channels showing. Ajust to get rid of blue cast, then select the opposite in this case red and then you'll see seperate curves in one filter in the work space so you know how far you've gone from default.

Increase gamma is easy but I dont get how to "drop the hue" ? Limit Hue options dont make much sense to me...is that what I'd use?

set wrote on 1/14/2021, 4:17 PM

18 years old thread topic 🙊

Anyway, I'd depends on this now for certain color adjustments:

https://www.semw-software.com/en/colorcurves/

Grazie wrote on 1/14/2021, 4:34 PM

2003. . . Huh, there's some names there - eh? Where's ZippyGaloo - 😂

RogerS wrote on 1/15/2021, 12:56 AM

Orangish skin tone can usually be improved quickly but increasing gamma/gain and perhaps dropping hue a bit all with the color corrector filter. If the rest of image isn't too orange to avoid messing everything else up use secondary color corrector, masking the skin and adjust the gain/hue on that color wheel.

I've had good success taking absolutely ruined source video and bringing it back to life. For example the other day a source was very blue. So blue the skin tone looked like the people were put in a deep freeze and froze solid.

In such an extreme case using the color corrector alone won't work. You first need to use color curves and adjust ONLY one curve, in this case the blue one and pull it far from where is was to restore to something approaching normal. Then use the color corrector.

The trick in this case is when you first drop the color curve filter on the event select the color you need to adjust the most first leaving all channels showing. Ajust to get rid of blue cast, then select the opposite in this case red and then you'll see seperate curves in one filter in the work space so you know how far you've gone from default.

Increase gamma is easy but I dont get how to "drop the hue" ? Limit Hue options dont make much sense to me...is that what I'd use?

You'd use secondary color corrector to isolate the color you want and then alter hue, luminance or saturation, for example. Watch the vectorscope and see where the skin is falling. Personally I'd follow Set's advice and use Graide Color Curves for a bit more precise control.

I'd suggest starting a new thread and include a screenshot of at least part of the image you are having trouble with.

Orange skin is often due to mixed lighting where you have warm indoor light but the camera white balance is for daylight coming in through a window. It may not be fully correctable without damaging the image as a whole. Then you can learn masking and motion tracking and confine the color adjustment to the mask : )