More neutral than almost all other gray cards

[Drew Strickland]

Bingo! A WB offset will change everything.

Gonna have to take a bit of an exception to these over generalizations, as well.

Actually, the net effect is small with these offsets from neutral. They are very small and in very specific colors. It will not change everything.

The offsets are small, but they are powerful in regards to skin tone, and they do save lots of time.

Not to mention that fact that many, many people cannot "see" color very well even with a calibrated monitor. These presets put them in the right ratio.

That's how it should be done. One should WB for the dominant illuminant, then CB for a (local) range of colors. A single click 'reference' can't do both at the same time.

That's how it "could" be done. If one wanted to take a lot longer to produce an image that will be no more pleasing to the eye than what one click can provide.

Just my .02.

I'm afraid, I'm with Jack here. We don't seem to be going much anywhere with this at this point. But, it has been interesting catching up with everyone over here.

Where is Andrew, anyway? I saw him on the schedule up in New York. Guess he hasn't gotten back on the boards, yet.

Hi Andrew. Hope PhotoPlus was good. We were only there for a short time. Didn't get to see any of the presentations.

 

[Bart_van_der_Wolf]

Well, if it is in fact spectrally uniform, then it will be chromatically neutral under any illuminant. (That is, whatever the chromaticity of the incident illumination (under any definitive of chromaticity we care to adopt), then the reflected light will have that same chromaticity.

That's right.

Here's an example of 2 rather well behaved targets for White Balancing:

They both exhibit a spectrally uniform response over a large range of relevant wavelengths. The BabelColor White target is a bit more accurate, especially in the near UV to Blue wavelengths.

Bart

 

[Doug Kerr]

Hi, Drew,

It will not change everything.

How can that be? Sounds magical.

Best regards,

Doug

 

[Bart_van_der_Wolf]

Bingo! A WB offset will change everything.

Gonna have to take a bit of an exception to these over generalizations, as well.

Drew,

You frankly have me wondering about your concept of White Balancing ...
If WB doesn't change all colors, then what will it do, according to you?

That's how it should be done. One should WB for the dominant illuminant, then CB for a (local) range of colors. A single click 'reference' can't do both at the same time.

That's how it "could" be done. If one wanted to take a lot longer to produce an image that will be no more pleasing to the eye than what one click can provide.

No, it's how it should be done, unless one chooses to compromise by using a less than optimal route to save time, a saving which remains to be proven by the way. My premise is that with a good White Balance, it becomes relatively easy to selectively adjust e.g. skin color to our liking, without hurting the rest of the image.

Bart

 

[Asher Kelman]

It boils down to what goals we set for ourselves. If we just want to get the check from a client by making a picture have Razzmataz whizbang effects, then fine. This might work as long as all the races are the same. However if there's a bad orange light or blue light and we use an offset reference the whites and other colors will be off.

This is really like having machine processed prints at a drug store. If that's one's way of doing work, and it serves the purpose, it might be fine. When I get one I'll try to look at this.

However, I really have yet to see this is in practical circumstances.

In the meanwhile I believe one should get the WB referenced to a good grey card, such as, but not limited to WhiBal™. Then have sets of curves for each skin type and paint them in to each face as required.

Now what about those he say it works? Well we have no examples and no details whatsoever! I think that for much of the time, if with dominant flash and one is reasonable close, then most 90% of the light may anyway be close the color temp of the flash, so in practice, the temp of the flash is what counts and the colored disc is merely giving the whole picture a pleasing tint. Maybe that's happening. That's just a guess!

Asher

 

[Drew Strickland]

you guys are a hoot.

Actually, it is magic.

Happy Halloween.

 

[Asher Kelman]

you guys are a hoot.

Actually, it is magic.

Happy Halloween.

Happy Halloween to you too, Drew!

I am open to your new device! However, I cannot imagine it will work in certain key situations.

Photography is magic! The job of the wedding photographer is to create memories for the bride and her mother to share with their friends! As long as the main pictures are great, the guest pictures could well be processed fast with such a card. Generally there are only several guests in each shot at the reception or dance, so there's less of a challenge in getting the color right. With more people in a shot and a wider angle, the incident light and face colors can present a need for local corrections. Certainly, I'd want to spend much more time on the formal pictures that will appear in the album.

Asher

 

[Bart_van_der_Wolf]

you guys are a hoot.

Hey, I'm generally not considered a hoot (way too serious when photography is involved), thanks anyway.

Actually, it is magic.

Apparently.

Happy Halloween.

Thanks, although not a concept that's embraced in Europe, I do appreciate the (scary) thought behind it. Likewise.

Bart

 

[Doug Kerr]

Drew's instructions

Hi, Drew,

In your page offering three raw file of shots including the ColorRight MAX, for people to use in seeing how one can vary the white balance result, you say:

"Please Note: All the Jpeg Images Below Are All Jpeg Samples Straight Out of the Camera using Auto White Balance."

In your "instructions" for use of the ColorRight MAX, you say:

"To use the Skin tone selector you simply set your camera to raw capture, or use jpeg on any white balance setting other than auto ..." [emphasis supplied]

Now of course I never understood why it would matter what WB mode was in effect. With regard to using the raw file, it is unaffected by the WB setting. With regard to correcting the JPEG output (an iffy process at best), again I would think that perhaps one would want to start with one that was corrected the best the camera could do, perhaps automatic WB.

So what's the story here? Should we do what you say, or what you do? (As a practical matter, of course.)

Also, with regard to the trial images, after mentioning the JPEG images, you say:

"They have not been corrected at all."

If you really mean there the JPEG images, of course they have been corrected - any JPEG image out of a camera has been color corrected, somehow.

And if you are referring to the accompanying raw files, of course they haven't been corrected - no raw file has been color corrected.

So what am I missing here?

Best regards,

Doug

 

[Doug Kerr]

Hi, Bart,

Drew,

You frankly have me wondering about your concept of White Balancing ...

Please, no talk of concepts here. It spoils the mood.

Best regards,

Doug

 

[Doug Kerr]

It's magic

Many years ago, I taught a technical seminar on digital transmission in telephony to several groups of transmission and maintenance engineers from the Puerto Rico Telephone Company, in San Juan. All were native Spanish speakers, and were fluent in English as well.

In one group, after I had finished my introduction to the basic principles of digital representation of speech and the reconstruction of the waveform from the digital representation, one of the students said,excitedly, "Mr. Kerr, this is truly FM!"

Not ever thinking of how international some "metaphors" were, I said, "No, Francisco, not FM - it's PCM" [pulse code modulation].

"No, Mr. Kerr", he said, "not that kind of FM".

He was of course referring to a certain kind of magic often cited in cases of amazing technological facts.

Best regards,

Doug

 

[Jack_Flesher]

Doug and Bart:

I think it would help us all if you each posted one of your personally-produced images that illustrates the superiority of your methods of balancing skintones.

Thanks in advance,

 

[Alain Briot]

Doug and Bart:

I think it would help us all if you each posted one of your personally-produced images that illustrates the superiority of your methods of balancing skintones.

Thanks in advance,

Exactly! I thought this was about photography?

 

[Asher Kelman]

Tone in wedding portraits of different skin type and white balance in different light

Doug and Bart:

I think it would help us all if you each posted one of your personally-produced images that illustrates the superiority of your methods of balancing skintones.

Jack,

Doug, the rapacious engineer, steadfastly looks at the technical basis for things and how they work. He has, at Drew's request, spent many hours testing the various iterations of Drew's invention. As this has evolved stated purposes and rational for the device have changed remarkably. Doug is not just looking as an outsider and making casual remarks. Doug has been a participating invited reviewer and colleague.

His tough critique should not be taken as utterly negative. Similarly, when a cut out portion seems so positive it shouldn't be used in isolation, out of context. Doug, as requested by Drew, is merely looking at what the device does under directed conditions. Yes, sometimes he uses satire, which I admit I can miss and other times he's presenting a graph with hard data. So his reflections on this matter are neither casual nor as it may seem, mean-spirited. He's just a tough old chap that's hard to please or hoodwink! Despite this, Drew is sending him the latest version so there's still the mutual respect buzzing between them.

Anyway, what do you think? This new device with different hues, is not about balancing skin tones is it? To me, at least, I have used "balancing" to imply referencing to a neutral standard included in the image or a nearest substitute or doing the same by eye.

Drew's interesting device is intended not for balancing as such but rather to very conveniently achieve a pleasing skin tone. If the material in the device was originally essentially neutral, like for example the WhiBal™ card, with a specific dye added in the final manufacture of the plastic, then it would mostly neutralize but with an offset. We just have to test this out with different skin types and contaminating lighting. I'm open to new ideas and any quick help dealing with thousands of pictures is great. In practice we need more real world detailed information.

Asher

 

[Doug Kerr]

Hi, Jack,

Doug and Bart:

I think it would help us all if you each posted one of your personally-produced images that illustrates the superiority of your methods of balancing skintones.

I'm not sure what "balancing" skintones means. Do you mean adjusting skintones?

"Balancing" (in this context) seems to best refer to making adjustments in image chromaticity to overcome "unnatural" appearance as a result of the shot being taken under light whose chromaticity does not match that of the white point of the color space in which the image is recorded.

Of course, we may execute the former by warping our execution of the latter.

In any case, I think Halle Berry has a lovely balance to her skin tone.

Now, that having been said, I'd of course love to see some examples of people's work on this front. And it would be good to learn from each submitter what criteria of "superiority" they held to with regard to the technique presented, or even to the work that it yielded.

Best regards,

Doug

 

[Jack_Flesher]

Anyway, what do you think? This new device with different hues, is not about balancing skin tones is it? To me, at least, I have used "balancing" to imply referencing to a neutral standard included in the image or a nearest substitute or doing the same by eye.

Asher:

With all due respect, you can "balance" to any hue you want. If that hue happens to run cool, then your balance will offset that to be warm, if the hue is warm, your balance will correspondingly cool. Now some folks won't like me calling that a balance, but a balance it is --- the scale just happens to be tipped in an adjustment direction of my choosing So yes, I think the new tool is about balancing to my choice of neutral hue that benefits the appearance of skintones -- at least to my (or my client's) eyes. Note that this is not a new concept, "warm" and "cool" 'gray' cards have been around precisely serving this purpose for a long time...

As to the rest, I feel some people enjoy debating the semantics of an asked question instead of simply answering -- like debating what the definition of "is" is -- to such excess it obfuscates all constructive dialog. And the whole point of this forum is to engage in constructive dialog, is it not?

My .02 anyway,

 

[Jack_Flesher]

Now, that having been said, I'd of course love to see some examples of people's work on this front. And it would be good to learn from each submitter what criteria of "superiority" they held to with regard to the technique presented, or even to the work that it yielded.

And per my earlier request, let's start with one of your images and your technique so we all have a better reference point from which to expand on

Best regards,

 

[Doug Kerr]

Hi, Jack,

Doug and Bart:

I think it would help us all if you each posted one of your personally-produced images that illustrates the superiority of your methods of balancing skintones.

Well, I hardly feel qualified, but since you invited me specifically [update: nagged me], here's one.

This is Carla making her famous vegetarian chili (with beans) for a church group potluck tomorrow night. Just a grab shot.

Illumination was overwhelmingly flash, head-on, no modifier.

This is from the JPEG output, with the EOS 40D's AWB in effect.

Processing included a little brightness and contrast adjustment, cropping, resizing (and then sharpening to suit).

I consider this particular white balance color correction technique superior in this case because I didn't have to do a thing.

Now if Ka-la Tsu-la A-gi-ga-ge's skin looks a little red here, who's to say that's not the right effect.

Best regards,

Doug

 

[Jack_Flesher]

Thanks for posting that Doug. I will hold off full comment until I can view the above image on my profiled studio monitor. My initial impression from viewing on my profiled laptop monitor the woman's skin looks gray-green and somewhat sickly. I find that particular skintone uncomplimentary and see a similar gray-green shift in the wood cabinets as well -- but then perhaps that is what the woman and the cabinets look like in reality? My next question is simple, is the woman happy with the way she appears here?

Thanks,

 

[Doug Kerr]

Hi, Jack,

As to the rest, I feel some people enjoy debating the semantics of an asked question instead of simply answering -- like debating what the definition of "is" is -- to such excess it obfuscates all constructive dialog. And the whole point of this forum is to engage in constructive dialog, is it not?

You are always such a ray of sunshine and hope in this otherwise often dreary world.

And I'll certainly try to eschew obfuscation henceforth.

My .02 anyway,

I'm sorry, you didn't give the unit for that. Is it maunds?

Best regards,

Doug

 

[Doug Kerr]

Hi, Jack,

Thanks for posting that Doug. I will hold off full comment until I can view the above image on my profiled studio monitor. My initial impression from viewing on my profiled laptop monitor the woman's skin looks gray-green and somewhat sickly. I find that partucular hue unpleasant and see it in the wood cabinets too, but then perhaps that is what the woman and the cabinets look like in reality? My next question is simple, is the woman happy with the way she appears here?

She doesn't care in the slightest how she looks here, even less how you think she looks.

I'm sorry to hear about your laptop.

Best regards,

Doug

 

[Jack_Flesher]

I'm sorry, you didn't give the unit for that. Is it maunds?

LOLOLOLOL! Sorry, I forget this is an international forum. I will be certain to include the appropriate currency symbol in the future --

My humble apologies and additional $0.02,

 

[Jack_Flesher]

She doesn't care in the slightest how she looks here, even less how you think she looks.

Ah okay, so she's not your typical paying client

Cheers,

 

[Asher Kelman]

Asher:
...... So yes, I think the new tool is about balancing to my choice of neutral hue that benefits the appearance of skintones -- at least to my (or my client's) eyes. Note that this is not a new concept, "warm" and "cool" 'gray' cards have been around precisely serving this purpose for a long time...
......... And the whole point of this forum is to engage in constructive dialog, is it not?

My .02 anyway,

Thanks for the clarification, Jack.

Yes, "warm" and "cool" 'gray' cards are useful to include in portraits. I hope to be testing Drew's use of these ideas to see how it might work for me. My interest is in dealing with different skin types in the same picture. For many weddings, most pics might well have a majority of skin color of the same hues so "correcting" or "balancing" as you would say, might be done in a batch.

The object here is to get something out of the debate that impacts our work. I appreciate the discussion and the work both Drew, designing and Doug, in being a foil and reviewer have each put into this. I for one have learned more than a little from their dogged efforts. Like any critique, one has to have insight and openness to gather the points that are useful from that which have no import.

Asher

 

[Doug Kerr]

Hi, Asher,

Thanks for the clarification, Jack.

Yes, "warm" and "cool" 'gray' cards are useful to include in portraits.

Indeed, and now we have a nice round "warm" one.

I'm a little surprised that Drew's array doesn't provide for shift in both the "warm" and "cool" directions.

I'm sure he collected a lot of data on what directions of shift were most often needed before designing the array.

When I get a chance, I'll make a plot of the shifts given by the six sectors on the u'v' chromaticity plane so we can easily see what repertoire we have.

For the moment, I'll have to work from the colors of the sectors as shown by the sample images.

Best regards,

Doug

 

[Doug Kerr]

Hi, Asher,

Well what Drew's device and the colored cards that have available do is to provide a nearly neutral reflecting material but doped with a dye that absorbs more of the blue green colors so the resulting image will be boosted in the red-yellow . .

I'm not sure I follow about the "dyes". If we want to shift the chromaticity of the image away from the result of theoretically ideal white balance in the red-yellow direction, we need to use a target that is off-neutral in the blue-cyan direction, as are all the "skin tone" (equally, real-estate sign tone) patches on the ColorRight MAX..

I just wonder what it does to the other colors and when there are different racial types represented in the same photograph!

Well, to simplify it a bit, it shifts all the image areas by the same chromaticity vectors. If it makes Sarah Palin's face a bit redder, it makes Barack Obama's face a little redder, and Rahm Emanuel's face a little redder, and Sitting Bull's face a little redder, and "Ten beers" O'Flaherty's face a little redder, and Charlize Theron's face a little redder (I've included an African-American just for variety) and the white parts of the candidates' patriotic signs a little red(der).

Have you seen my report on the actual offsets that would be produced by use of the six patches in the ColorRight MAX "palette"?

Best regards,

Doug

Older than Sarah Palin, but only for a few days

 

[Doug Kerr]

Well, gang, step up to the plate

Hi, all of youse guys out there in color management land,

I think it would help us all if you each posted one of your personally-produced images that illustrates the superiority of your methods of balancing skintones.

Now, formally, the "you [each]" part of this refers to "Doug and Bart", but I would sure like to see some more of you responding anyway.

(I assume you each have your own understanding of what "balancing skintones" means - I have been chastised for raising a question about that for my own edification. You know, "don't argue about semantics when there's real work to be done here.")

Best regards,

Doug

Married to the world's only gray-green-skinned Cherokee

 

[Asher Kelman]

Skin tones, gray balance, portraits and weddings software, new thread

With the idea of using a profile for the 5D from a Nikon D700 to optimize skin tones the thread developed a new topic. The related posts provide compelling alternate methods of getting pleasing skin tones in portraits or wedding pictures is discussed here. With software one can remove contaminating hue referencing a neutral gray and only then apply the desired adjustment for the beautiful skin tone applied to the skin only. Other parts of the picture unaltered and the whites are perfect.

This leaves this thread to discuss neutrality of reference cards.

Asher

 

[Doug Kerr]

A second entry

Well, since the forum's capacity hasn't been overwhelmed by entries in the "your skin tone balance" challenge, I thought I would submit a second entry, using an alternative technique.

This one was not corrected during raw development (I hadn't taken a raw output) but was re-corrected in the JPEG image (you know, like you can do with the ColorRight MAX).

It uses my second-favorite technique - doing white balance color correction based on a probably-nearly-white object naturally in the scene (in this case, the "white" areas on a container of Swanson's Vegetable Broth, seen here with the blue corner.)

This result makes Carla's skin a little less reddish than before - probably good if we are trying to avoid racial stereotypes.

Again, note that the actual objective here (contrary to the premise of the challenge - might I be disqualified?) was not "skin-tone balance" (whatever that is), or even "skin tone customization", but rather "white balance color correction".

We don't know how to overcome the "gray-green" tone of her skin reported by the challenge proposer with respect to my earlier submission. We don't even know how to see it.

Best regards,

Doug

 

[Bart_van_der_Wolf]

Doug and Bart:

I think it would help us all if you each posted one of your personally-produced images that illustrates the superiority of your methods of balancing skintones.

Okay Jack,

First I want to re-iterate that skincolor reproduction with a digital camera is a process that varies with the color temperature of the dominant illuminant, and with the amount of in camera IR filtration.

The following graph shows how the near-IR spectral reflection by (my) skin is 2-3 times higher than at the blue end:

That means that a lightsource with a higher IR bias (lower incandescent color temperature) will be even more critical relative to the camera's response.

Here is a (horribly lit) scene which could be considered to have a correct general White Balance:

While the grays are neutral, and the overall color reproduction of the sensor array and Raw converter are calibrated, the skincolor is the only thing that's quite a bit different from the accurate color.

We could try and change the skin color by using a different White Balance when converting the Raw data, as is the implict recommendation by Drew's method. This is what the 'accurate' color of the skin would require:

The drawback of such an approach obviously is that ALL colors, except for the skin, will be rendered with a cast, and the skin color is still only accurate to a degree because WB alone cannot nail it exactly.

The preferred approach, which I'm advocating, is to use the correct White Balance for the scene, and only adjust the deviant skin colors with a Color Balancing correction. The reason for that being that skin color will deviate most from accurate in many Digtal camera / Raw converter combinations. The result is shown here:

Selecting skin colors (for a mask) is relatively straight forward with a color range selection, and the colors can be changed at will with a Color Balancing filter (layer). That would also allow to Color Correct the camera's response to a mix of different skin colors in the same image. It can even be used in an action if speed of operation is more important than absolute perfection.

With this method we can also apply a partial correction, or if we want to add a tan or sunburn to an existing image, which is often considered to be more pleasing (to a customer) than accurate skin colors.

Bart