Numbers for skin tones in low light images

Numbers for skin tones in low light images

Hi Megan! I am loving your breakout! It's been really inspirational, and your photos are gorgeous. I feel silly because I posted this in the Q&A dropbox, then realized that I missed the deadline by several days. So, figured I'd give it a try here. I see that there have been a few questions about skin tones, but I'm still having a bit of a problem with low light situations. Here is my original question:

Hi Megan! Wonderful breakout, so many breakthroughs! I have a question about skin tones in low light images. I typically edit by numbers in LR, and shoot for a spread of roughly R85, G78, and B71 for my super fair skinned children, and then, make sure the R channel is at or below 94 in the highlights. But, I'm having a mental block about how to apply this is low light situations. Can you go over your approach here? Do you find a mid-tone area, then underexpose keeping the similar spread just lower numbers, like R75, G70, B65? Or do you apply the same spread to highlight areas (meaning the R channel in highlights would be closer to 85 than 94)?

Read more: http://www.clickinmoms.com/forums/showthread.php?t=429137#ixzz43YCEZxh9

 Originally Posted by rachl 

Hi Megan! I am loving your breakout! It's been really inspirational, and your photos are gorgeous. I feel silly because I posted this in the Q&A dropbox, then realized that I missed the deadline by several days. So, figured I'd give it a try here. I see that there have been a few questions about skin tones, but I'm still having a bit of a problem with low light situations. Here is my original question:

Hi Megan! Wonderful breakout, so many breakthroughs! I have a question about skin tones in low light images. I typically edit by numbers in LR, and shoot for a spread of roughly R85, G78, and B71 for my super fair skinned children, and then, make sure the R channel is at or below 94 in the highlights. But, I'm having a mental block about how to apply this is low light situations. Can you go over your approach here? Do you find a mid-tone area, then underexpose keeping the similar spread just lower numbers, like R75, G70, B65? Or do you apply the same spread to highlight areas (meaning the R channel in highlights would be closer to 85 than 94)?

This is a great question. I was actually thinking about this earlier. What I do first is adjust my exposure and WB properly first. I then will sometimes bring down my exposure a little depending on the mood I'm trying to achieve. When I do this, it often cools my image a little. When images are exposed they tend to look cooler. I then will often bump up the temp slightly and warm the image up even more. So my spread between the red channel and blue channel may increase. Does that make sense?

 

 

Read more: http://www.clickinmoms.com/forums/showthread.php?t=429137#ixzz43YCOdffW

Yes! Thanks, this is so helpful.

 megnlo