Colour is subjective. Even the spelling of the word is contentious (unless you live in the UK, and then you spell it right). As a portrait photographer used to working with Olympus or Adobe colours I am having to adapt my processing having made the switch to Sony. Now, I realise I'm a couple of generations behind here as I am using the original a7, but I am keen to start my new Lightroom presets with a good skin tone colour base.
As such, and as changing colour profiles has been made so much easier in recent Lightroom iterations, I'm trying the "cross camera color profiles" offered by Cross Camera Color Profiles – The Classic Series – PSKISS as I find the adobe colours flat and the Sony colours too yellowy-green. I work on a basic monitor that is colour-checked but only to sRGB display. I am looking for natural-looking colours, but not necessarily a faithful recreation of the scene (whatever that is!), more something that is flattering and works across different images.
So without further ado, here's a shot of my wife and daughter with different colour profiles from the PSKISS set applied - I'm curious as to your opinions on how they work and what you feel is natural for their skin type. I've used a RAW image taken with natural light at ISO 1250 and then used the auto white balance and auto levels. The only thing that has changed between these images is the colour profile.
Adobe Standard:
Sony Portrait:
Canon 1DX mkiii Standard:
Canon 1DX mkiii Portrait:
Nikon D3 Portrait:
Leica:
Pentax:
Comments welcome.
And, for completeness, here is a somewhat finished version of the image. I do have a slightly stylised version of processing, and I wanted to show my wife's freckles, but in hindsight I probably need to turn the dial down to 7 - and maybe add some pink back to my daughter's face. Can you guess which colour profile I used?
For the future: experiment on different skin types! And probably the cats.
As such, and as changing colour profiles has been made so much easier in recent Lightroom iterations, I'm trying the "cross camera color profiles" offered by Cross Camera Color Profiles – The Classic Series – PSKISS as I find the adobe colours flat and the Sony colours too yellowy-green. I work on a basic monitor that is colour-checked but only to sRGB display. I am looking for natural-looking colours, but not necessarily a faithful recreation of the scene (whatever that is!), more something that is flattering and works across different images.
So without further ado, here's a shot of my wife and daughter with different colour profiles from the PSKISS set applied - I'm curious as to your opinions on how they work and what you feel is natural for their skin type. I've used a RAW image taken with natural light at ISO 1250 and then used the auto white balance and auto levels. The only thing that has changed between these images is the colour profile.
Adobe Standard:
ILCE-7
FE 50mm F1.8
50mm
f/5.6
1/60s
ISO 1250
Sony Portrait:
ILCE-7
FE 50mm F1.8
50mm
f/5.6
1/60s
ISO 1250
Canon 1DX mkiii Standard:
ILCE-7
FE 50mm F1.8
50mm
f/5.6
1/60s
ISO 1250
Canon 1DX mkiii Portrait:
ILCE-7
FE 50mm F1.8
50mm
f/5.6
1/60s
ISO 1250
Nikon D3 Portrait:
ILCE-7
FE 50mm F1.8
50mm
f/5.6
1/60s
ISO 1250
Leica:
ILCE-7
FE 50mm F1.8
50mm
f/5.6
1/60s
ISO 1250
Pentax:
ILCE-7
FE 50mm F1.8
50mm
f/5.6
1/60s
ISO 1250
Comments welcome.
And, for completeness, here is a somewhat finished version of the image. I do have a slightly stylised version of processing, and I wanted to show my wife's freckles, but in hindsight I probably need to turn the dial down to 7 - and maybe add some pink back to my daughter's face. Can you guess which colour profile I used?
ILCE-7
FE 50mm F1.8
50mm
f/5.6
1/60s
ISO 1250
For the future: experiment on different skin types! And probably the cats.