I’m using PS CS2 (XP, SP2). I’ve been given a digital photo with truly awful color. The color is so "off," the guy’s face looks almost like fluorescent orange.
I’ve experimented with curves, hue and saturation, color balance, etc., but have not been able to hit on the right combinations to get an acceptable skin tone. I can make it look better, but he’s still too pinkish or purplish. If I desaturate more, he starts looking really unhealthy.
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The photo (the unadulterated version, saved down to a 72 dpi JPEG) doesn’t look as bad in Firefox as it does in Photoshop! He’s still too pink, though.
The image has a lot of channel clipping evidence (levels that seem to have been brought back to well within the range, but clipped nonetheless.
Also, and this is the reason the image looks "worse" in PS than in Firefox, is carries a profile that is not good, or the monitor isn’t properly calibrated and profiled (Adobe PS is colour managed.
In any case, when preparing images for the web, always convert to sRGB. (Edit – Convert to profile…)
Here’s my interpretation. The key to success was (surprisingly) a Hue Saturation adjustment (Hue/Sat: Edit: Reds – hue: +21 – sat:-60)
If you Convert, the color numbers are changed while retaining the appearance (as nearly as possible)… not good since the appearance is bad. Assigning a profile changes the appearance without changing the numbers. Once the image takes on a realistic flesh tone (by experimentally Assigning profiles), then you can Convert it to your profile of choice.
Or not. Just one way of doing what should be a simple fix.
Show yourself. Seriously, just load an image (the one of this gentleman will do), go to Assign profile and scroll through the profiles on your system (with Preview checked) and observe how the color changes, sometimes dramatically…especially if you have Wide Gamut RGB or ProPhoto RGB on hand.
Then do the same thing with Convert and notice that, except for any grayscale profiles, that there is a very minimal difference from color profile to color profile.
I’ve never used the channel mixer, and I don’t know how to make the changes. Do I enter all of the changes on the red channel? (I tried that, but the results weren’t great.)
Thanks to all for your suggestions, but now I’m possibly even more confused. <g>
This image isn’t intended for web use. It will be dropped into a Quark file and offset printed (4-color process). So, what profile should I be using? I see a "sRGB IEC61966-2.1" profile in Photoshop — is that the correct one?
When I open an image, I have PS set to ask me if I want to:
Use the embedded profile Convert document’s colors to working space Discard the embedded profile
Should I discard the embedded profile and then assign (or convert??) to a new profile, or set my preferences so the sRGB (or whatever I’m suppssed to use for offset printing)is my default working space, and let PS "convert document’s colors to working space"?
I figure I may as well start out with the correct color profile before I do any more fiddling with the image. I am getting a tiny bit panicky — I have to upload these files to the printer tonight.
I tried the eyedropper thing and then fiddled with hue and saturation, but I’m still ending up with surreal colors.
In H&S, should I be adjusting just the Red, or the Master?
Or … get CS3 and do it in Camera Raw!<<
I intend to upgrade to CS3 as soon as I get a new computer. And I intend to get a new computer as soon as I decide which monitor to get. I’m still trying to find out what the best LCD monitors are for PS work. I’ve looked at some 24" "consumer"-level monitors locally, but here’s no place where I can look at high-end monitors.
Right now I’m using an old SpectraView 1000 which can be calibrated, but I have never been able to quite work out how to do it. Too technical for me.
There is more than one way to do this. I *think* I would…
Discard the embedded profile just to be safe, then Assign sRGB or Apple RGB to obtain a good skin tone (light on the Cyan with roughly equal amounts of Magenta and Yellow). You can confirm those numbers via the Info palette without actually converting to CMYK. Make sure your eyedropper is set to sample 3×3 or 5×5. If your display is calibrated properly you can just eyeball it.
There’s really no advantage in Converting to Adobe RGB (the "normal" color space for press work) before you (or your printer) do the final conversion to CMYK, but it won’t hurt anything either; it’s your option.
I can’t say how it will print from Quark but what I did was assign an sRGB profile, then use the middle eyedropper in the Levels dialog followed by a Hue/Sat layer (Master) with Hue: +7, Saturation: -7, Lightness: +7.
I read all of the posts! I think part of the problem is that my monitor’s not calibrated (so even when I plug in the same numbers that people have suggested, I’m not seeing the same results) and part is that I don’t know what I’m doing.
I’ve finally got a "final" image that I think will work (it’s a lot better than what I produced yesterday!). Getting rid of the original profile helped a lot, and then I tweaked the levels and H&S.
So now I’d like to figure out how to proceed in the future — whether I should I buy a book (and which book) or take a class. I frequently get digital photos that leave a lot to be desired, and I am spending more and more time trying to fix them.
I also need to deal with the calibration issue. I could try to figure out how to calibrate my current monitor (the Mitsubishi SpectraView 1000) but I’d prefer to buy a new LCD monitor that I can calibrate.
I’d welcome any suggestions regarding books, classes (I can take a 2-day class locally for $745, although it covers more than fixing bad photos, so I’m not sure how much it actually concentrates on what I need to do), and monitor calibration …
Spend $50 on Professional Photoshop by Dan Margulis (cheaper on Amazon). Then spend another $50 on Real World Photoshop by Blatner and Fraser. Read and apply.
I’ve got RWP, but it’s the Photoshop 5 edition. <g> Guess I need to get the CS3 edition, since I’ll be upgrading my software soon.
Then start teaching your own classes.<<
LOL!
I’m still in a quandary about the monitor issue. It was Bruce Fraser who recommended the SpectraView to me way back when. I need to find another monitor maven.
But this is one of the few times that scrolling through the profiles (in Assign) delivered a proper colour rendition.
Nah, back when I was outputting a lot of files for other people, the first thing we’d do when getting images that look like that is try to assign sRGB to is (if it wasn’t tagged). a LOT of times it fixed the problem, and if it didn’t, you were a lot closer to something realistic so correcting was easier.
Anytime I receive a profiled image with color that looks wrong, I try assigning different profiles (just the most common ones) to see if it makes any sort of positive difference. If it does, my job is made a bit easier. If it doesn’t, not much time was wasted.
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