Color management and natural skin tones

The daily work of professional photographers delivers a large number of images. Therefore it is important to achieve consistent and non-varying image results and it is recommended to set up a suitable color management to keep the time for the post-processing workflow as low as possible. Fees are mostly paid for the shooting time and only a small part for the post-processing time. If the photographer is forced to correct several thousand pictures manually after a photohooting he possibly doesn’t get any money for the time-consuming post-processing work.

A distinction must be made between controlled shooting situations, such as studio and product photography, and uncontrolled shooting situations, usually in the event, press, sports and wedding photography. Color management in general aims to deliver consistent and controllable image results with correct colors at manageable post-processing costs. There are countless books and literature about color management, with the main focus being on monitor and printer calibration, the selection of the correct color space and the usage of color profiles. For studio photographers who shoot primarily for print media a solid color management is prerequisite for the correct color reproduction of clothing, textiles or fashion.

Event, sports and wedding photographers face quite different challenges. These photographers are frequently confronted with problematic light conditions: artificial light, camera flash, fluorescent tubes and mixed light. Sports photographers are often not allowed to use the camera flash in indoor venues and have the problem with fluorescent tubes. Event photographers are always struggling with mixed light situations: the existing artificial light of indoor locations and the daylight of often large-area windows are mixed with the camera flash. Furthermore, shootings in these areas of photography often address completely different output media: classical prints, exposure to photographic paper or monitors for online media.

For this particular group of photographers, the classical scheme of color management with color profiles and end-to-end calibration right up to the printer is only partly applicable. An important aspect in these areas is therefore the rendering of natural skin tones. Strictly speaking the color management already starts with the selection of the camera. Especially for JPEG shooting the camera should deliver natural skin tones out-of-the-box in order to avoid time-consuming post-processing work. An antiflicker function of the camera prevents color casts under fluorescent tubes and is very helpful for sport photographers in gyms and indoor sports arenas. Event and wedding photographers however try to incorporate the ambient light into their images by advanced flash settings to reduce the hard light of the camera flash. Admittedly there is a risk to get images with color casts. However, as long as the skin tones are displayed naturally, the resulting atmospheric shots are very pleasing and usually better than images taken only with the flash light of the camera. In addition, setting the image control or the image style directly on the camera (for instance color tone and contrast) can influence the color rendering. This is particularly interesting for JPEG shootings, because color corrections for JPEGs are very limited compared to RAW iamges.

For professional photographers a correct monitor calibration is essential for reproducible and constant image results. In addition, Datacolor also offers special tools such as the Spyder Cube or Spyder Checkr to photographers who do not work in controlled studio environments. In conjunction with the new function of “reference images” in Lightroom, even the most difficult light conditions can be controlled very well.