Achieving realistic skin tones

[Dan Parkes]

I have been using Paolo Ciccone's TrueColor HD250 for our HD201, as it provides such latitude of realistic and saturated colours that can then be adjusted in post.

However one drawback seems to be skin tones - they become quite reddish. If anyone has some tips on achieving realistic skin tones while at the same time using scene files such Paolo's then I would be most interested.

Cheers
Dan

[Marc Colemont]

Hi Dan,
With my HD100 I noticed the same thing last year.
I did some adjustments by having a DSC chart myself to compare.
And indeed on my camera the 'reds' were more peaking out of the vector-scope with Paolo's settings. Looks like the camera's can have a slight offset between each other from the factory.
I dialed back on the color matrix, and saved it as my own settings.
Here is the webpage I made for it, with the settings which give the same result as Paolo has on his camera.
You could try these modifications as well and see if that helps getting less reds on the skintones?
HD100 Calibration

[Paolo Ciccone]

Hi Dan.

Skin tones are the most crucial part of my settings and, unfortunately, the HD200/250 series don't get as close to the right setup as the HD100 can. I discussed this issue at length before but basically the color matrix of the 200 is skewed and provides more limited correction than the one in the HD100. Given that skin tones are mostly created by the yellow and red components, and that only the red is directly adjustable in the ProHD cameras, you are left with a very narrow range available, with the yellow being adjasted as a "side effect" of changing the blue value. Because of this limited range it's quite possible that the settings that worked on the HD250 that I used are not perfect for your camera. If you have a chart you can simply turn the dials until the red and yellow markers on the vectorscope align correctly. I you don't have a chart than ask for a friend to sit in front of the camera, zoom in to fill the frame with the face, and use the skin tone marker in the Vscope for the correction.

[Dan Parkes]

Hi Marc and Paolo

Thanks for the replies to my question. Marc -I'll try those tweaked settings and see how it goes (although it is for the HD100... how about for your HD251E?)

Paolo -thanks for the info regarding the HD200/250's more limited correction. I shall have to do a search for those more detailed discussions you mention regarding this, but in the meantime I'll also try your tip regarding using the skin tone marker in the Vscope for the correction. By the way Paola, I really appreciate your scene files and advice via these forums (including Adobe AE and Premiere) -we are entering production on a feature and would be happy to credit your scene file and colour correction workflow if/when we can use it.

Cheers
Dan

[Marc Colemont]

I will re-check these again the next days after I have more time (finishing a project at the moment).

[Ron German]

Hi Marc
I tested your HD100 Calibration regarding colours and the result qas veeery good.
Skin (and other subjects in frame) tone was pretty realistic.
I gess I`m going to use it full time for basic operation.
Thank you
Ron

[Dan Parkes]

Originally Posted by Ron German

Hi Marc
I tested your HD100 Calibration regarding colours and the result qas veeery good.
Skin (and other subjects in frame) tone was pretty realistic.
I gess I`m going to use it full time for basic operation.
Thank you
Ron

Thanks for that Ron, thats a good recommendation. Are you using a HD100 or 200 series? I have a day of auditions to shoot tomorrow so will try your settings Marc and see how it goes.

[Ron German]

Dan

My camera is HD 100a.
The only changes I use to make are:
Gama= standard (to provide mora dynamic range)
Detail= -7

Regards

Ron