dSLR & Asian Skin Tone

[sean_buerger]

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[Mr. Pickles]

Well, first of all, I never really use the "Auto" settings in a RAW editor. For my RAW Editor, I use Lightroom, which has the latest ACR engine that PSCS3 can use. For the "best" colors from a RAW editor for an Oly 4/3 system, the Oly software is the best, but the gap in difference is small really.

Also, in Lightroom, I can set and save what they call "Develop Presets". With these, you can tailor the Oly colors to what you feel is correct. Since the develop presets can contain any and all setting,you can figure that if you prefer more reds, you can dial in more reds. Want more green, dial it in. Individual colors can be controlled via saturation, hue or luminosity. Likewise you can control the contrast curve, vibrancy, etc. Once you have the colors like you want (I used a color chart with other pictures of real life things on it), you save the develop preset settings, and then when you want to correct one image or a batch, you select the image(s) and click the preset and whammo, all of the images take the preset characteristics.

I could see that for some people tones would need a bit of this or that, so if Asian portraits aren't working so well, it would be a somewhat simple modification to a preset to adjust, and once you settle on it, you save that one too.

With all that said, I'm not so sure that any camera will actually get you exactly what you want from the camera or from some auto or really simple software setting. I think you would have to modify some of the settings to achieve what you like. With presets, it is pretty easy to hit on wild color schemes that mimic film or other tastes. Lightroom makes it easy, but others can too.

In the images below, I like the skin tones. One is outside with sunshine and the other is indoor with flash...

P6190955.jpg

P6191042.jpg

[sean_buerger]

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[Raist3d]

Panasonic is Japanese company so I am pretty sure they must have dedicated some time to the skin colors. Have you tried shooting in JPEG with your L10? I believe they have a setting that they consider more appropriate for portraits?

This is one of the reasons I am inclined to use JPEG as my "film" and concentrate on others. Companies spend a fortune researching the best Bayer interpolation/colors/etc for jpegs so I think it's worth a try and see how it works.

For Olympus using "portrait mode" on the current cameras (E-3/e-420/e-520) really makes a difference on caucasian skin- not sure about asian.

- Raist

[sean_buerger]

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