• Wondering which camera, gear, computer, or software to buy? Ask in our Gear Guide.

Which skin tone looks the best?

Sort by date Sort by votes
youtube-unhappy-face.png


A bit too red.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
yeah my friends did not want to be in a youtube test video so I to do it myself. The scene will be shot under orange street lights in the same location. I thought the first one is very pale and de-saturated though, unless that's okay? It also has more noise and the third has the least amount of noise. If they all look bad though, any suggestions?
 
Last edited:
Upvote 0 Downvote
I think the first one is the best out of the three. It seems like it would be easier to grade, and it looks more professional. Still, somewhat unimpressive.

H44, please, stop posting shaky four second videos asking questions like "does it look okay?", "is it white balanced properly?", "which skin tones look best?", "do you like it?", "is the color grading better than the last 4 second clip I posted?", etc.

Make a short film. Stop worrying about all these things. Write a script, get some actors together, shoot, edit, post to the internet, and ask how to improve. Then repeat. Then repeat. Then repeat. Then repeat...

Advice? Don't use auto settings, use a piece of paper, white balance cards, or a poster board.

By the way, flatter, more unsaturated images are easier to correct and grade. Oh wait, I forgot...

http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=...=BOLM4t5N11c4h0wAT2-lSg&bvm=bv.49478099,d.aWc
 
Last edited:
Upvote 0 Downvote
Okay thanks.

I want to make a short, it's just that actors ask to see my work before they consider working for me, and I don't have any shorts to show them so they don't get back to me. It's a paradox. I will take the advice before though and try shoot a skit with no actors and just landscapes and scenery or something like that. I will wait to get my tripod back and come up with something.

I'm surprised you say the first one is easier to grade cause I thought I was told on here before that desaturated images are more difficult to grade cause details can be left out. Unless I misunderstood.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
harmonica44 said:
I will take the advice before though and try shoot a skit with no actors and just landscapes and scenery or something like that. I will wait to get my tripod back and come up with something.
Click to expand...
You could try putting the camera on a tripod and acting yourself. I did that a couple of times last year to shoot some really short VFX-stuff. That could be a nice challenge to try out even if you had access to actors.
 
Last edited:
Upvote 0 Downvote
Okay thanks. Well I am going for a thriller suspense type feel. Okay so the first one is the best cause it's the easiest to grade. It looks to pale to me, and when I try to grade it, by adding saturation, not much gets added, but more noise. I will try other forms of grading and see if I can make it better, but it seems that the de-saturation is more of a curse than a blessing. I'm a bad colorist though at my stage too of course.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
harmonica44 said:
...I thought I was told on here before that desaturated images are more difficult to grade cause details can be left out. Unless I misunderstood.
Click to expand...

Nothing anyone says matters until you've tried it yourself... until that point, it's just someone else's theory about reality.

There are a million correct answers to every question you ask, you really need to start making decisions about what you want, not what we want. Once you start actually shooting projects, the flurry of answers will "click" and start to make sense and inform future decisions... stop being afraid to fail and go for it.

Great that you're shooting tests, now take it into a grading package and play with it... stretch it out so that the darkest parts just touch the 0% bit and the lightest bits up to 100%. Wiggle the middle bits up and down until you like the way it looks and say "this is mine, I like it!" Others may not, it's irrelevant, ask them why they don't like it and agree with them or don't, it's your film.

Go to an art gallery and look at images you like (after you've played around with what color correction can do a bit more). Look at it specificaly for where the 0, 50, and 100% values are and how the transitions from one to the other are made, is the 0-50 transition abrupt or streteched out? What about 50-100%. Once you find what you like, start learning to reproduce it using lighting and grading.

If you're going to insist on using sodium lights in your production, you won't get "good" skin tone with out hand painting the entire image... which is an option. But as we've explained in other threads, it's essentially a black and white image with a single color throughout. It only produces orange light, so there's no other colors to be reflected back at you.

Park a car nearby, turn on the headlights and throw them into a white bedsheet to be used as either a reflector (light bounces off of the sheet, light and actor on the same side of the sheet) or a scrim (light goes through the sheet, light and actor separated by the sheet). Use the orange light over the shoulder to suggest the sodium lights without having to rely on them as your sole illumination.

That all said, if you like it, nothing I'm saying is true, fly it orange - I've done it!
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Okay thanks. The first one looks pale on the skin but looks great for street scenery. If I add color to the skin, then the street comes out pink and purple.

The second one looks better on the skin, but not as good for the street as everything is green and gold.

The third one looks okay for both, but just okay.

So if I grade the face to look good, the street scenery sucks, and if I grade the streets to look good, the faces suck. Trying to find a middle ground.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
harmonica44 said:
So if I grade the face to look good, the street scenery sucks, and if I grade the streets to look good, the faces suck. Trying to find a middle ground.
Click to expand...

You could benefit from watching some tutorials about color grading. I don't know which program you are using for the task, but if you youtube that program and color grading, I'd be willing to bet some videos will pop up. The reason I say this, is you need to learn about "primary" grading and "secondary" grading. There are ways to adjust only areas you designate for adjustment, using keys, mattes, power windows, etc. the statement above tells me you're trying to adjust the scene as a whole, and not getting the result you want. You're not having the success you want in grading, because I don't think you fully understand how it all works together.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
harmonica44 said:
Okay thanks.

I want to make a short, it's just that actors ask to see my work before they consider working for me, and I don't have any shorts to show them so they don't get back to me. It's a paradox. ..............
Click to expand...


Wow!
You finally realised it!

Yes, it's a paradox!
And it's even a bigger paradox that you don't just finish your first short with all it's flaws, so you have something to show. It's probably not great, but it shows you can finish something and that you are serious about filmmaking.
It's better to finish it, than have the eternal unfinished first short...

Past few months I gave you 2 short script ideas. One was even with just one person in it. (Or 2 if you want to and can find 2 actors/friends.)
Those plans where not like the thrillers you want to make, but it can help you make simple stuff fast, so you can learn fast, develop you skills fast and get actors faster.
But you choose to keep whinig about skintones at night or DOF.
You are blocking your own progress, by doing nothing.
Every day you don't make something you can show, will be a day you'll be wondering and pondering why you can't do something.

Your to do list:
- Finish your short as it is now. Do the colors suck? Too bad, but hey, you are still learning. Does the sound sound like crap? Too bad, but hey, you are still learning.
- Make something really short. Somewhere between 1 and 4 minutes max. Keep it simple. 1 or 2 actors/friends or even models who want to try film. 1 or 2 locations. Preferrably exterior. Shoot during daylight!

- OPTIONAL: find a local band you like with a short song. Make a simple video for them. Shoot it in 1 day only. It's a musicvideo, so you are allowed to try extreme grading, but you don't have to.

- OPTIONAL: make a short without actors. Can you tell a story this way? Or is it just a certain vibe you want to convey? Can you make a poetic short about the sun rising and your town awaking (with no words)?

- Now you have 2, 3 or 4 video's online hopefully showing progress, you'll find actors a lot easier.

- Watch 'Festen' a Swedish Dogma-feature, shot with camcorders and no additional lights, no action scenes, no explosions, no ADR, no score and see how the story makes you forget all the things they didn't use.


OR:

Keep asking questions and do nothing but shaking 4 second shots and you'll achieve nothing but a worldrecord on Indietalk-posts :P
 
Last edited:
Upvote 0 Downvote
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top