Best
viewed at 1024 x 768 or greater screen resolution,
16 bit color or better. All content &
photographs copyrighted, all rights
reserved.
Nikon D2H skin tone problems?
Some
photographers have problems with the D2H's skin tones, which
can show strong, sometimes almost mottled-looking orange,
yellow, red, and pink overtones. Flash pictures usually
intensify the effect.
Photojournalists, event, and studio photographers rely heavily on flash for primary and fill-in lighting, so they're especially affected by the problem. LCD screens (laptops & desktop LCD monitors) show the problem more than conventional CRT monitors ... combine flash pictures with an LCD screen and the problem is magnified. Most pros like to show proofs & samples to their clients on a computer monitor (part of the beauty of digital), many depend on a laptop computer as their primary display platform. And it's a serious problem when unnaturally strong or mottled looking skin tones in screen-viewed pictures turn out to be a deal-killer instead of a deal-sealer.
Or not ... ?
Other photographers find little or no problem at all, perhaps because of their particular shooting styles or techniques. It may be that they rarely rely on flash to light up their pictures. (Available light pictures seldom show a problem.) And perhaps they're viewing their pictures on bright, sharp, clear CRT monitors.
Examples & solutions
(Below) An example of
too-vivid D2H flash photo skin tones, courtesy of
pro photographer Israel
Hadari.
How
to fix the problem *Software
required: Nikon Capture 4 or
greater Strong
skin tones can be easily
corrected by loading a modified
Chroma curve into Nikon Capture
4's LCH Editor. The modified
correction curve is a
focused, slight saturation
reduction to a particular range
of orange/red/pink tones coupled
with a small lift to the balance
of the saturation level. I've
gotten some great feedback from
several different pros who've
tried it on problem D2H skin
tones. Tip:
Open a people picture (any race
or skin color) in Capture 4. Now
move your mouse cursor over the
picture's skin tones with the LCH
Editor's Chroma screen open. And
watch where the colors map out on
the Chroma screen's horizontal
track line. This will show you
where virtually all skin tones
reside, (black, brown, tan,
yellow, red, and white skinned
people), a surprisingly narrow
area towards the left side of the
Chroma screen. Screenshots
of unmodified and modified Chroma
curves are shown below, followed
by samples of the above picture
after applying increasing levels
of Chroma curve
corrections. The
unmodified (default)
Chroma curve produces
equal saturation
throughout the color
spectrum. The
modified Chroma curve
slightly desaturates the
offensive colors and
very slightly raises the
saturation level in the
remaining colors to
retain image
quality. For
extreme cases, click and
drag the arrow on the
right side of the Chroma
screen downward until
the skin tones
desaturate enough to
suit your needs. By
dragging the arrow down,
the curve's shape &
output balance are
retained. (Samples with
stronger curve output
also shown
below.) (Below)
Harsh tones slightly corrected to
a more natural look with my -10+2
correction curve (the one shown
in the above screenshot). This is
an extreme skin tone example, so
this version is followed by two
more views of the same picture
with stronger curves. (Below)
with a stronger -15-3
curve. (Below)
And with an even stronger -20-8
curve Another
example (Below)
Another example of too-strong D2H
flash photo skin tones, also
courtesy of pro photographer
Israel
Hadari.
Mr. Hadari especially noted the
man's "red face". Also note that
the woman's skin has excessively
strong yellow and orange
overtones. (Below)
Skin tones corrected to a more
natural look with a simple
"click" in the LCH Editor in
Nikon Capture 4 software using
the -10+2 Chroma
curve. Download
the modified Chroma Curves
(free) Put
the file(s) in the default folder
that comes up when you select
"Load" in the Capture 4's LCH
Folder icon to the right of the
green light. (It's usually "My
Documents".) Click & open the
file and be sure the green check
mark is on next to the LCH Editor
title. Choose the Chroma view
option in the dropdown choices.
The shape of the curve line
should look exactly as shown
above, the up/down positioning
relative to the midpoint will
vary depending on the strength.
Toggle the check mark on &
off to view the
differences. Flexibility
Capture
4's LCH Editor works on any file
format: Jpeg, NEF, or Tiff. You
can batch process your pictures
in Capture 4 with it and make
your workflow simple. And the
same Chroma correction also works
to fix oversaturated skin tones
in Nikon D1, D1H, D1X, D100, D70,
and Coolpix pictures. In fact, it
will work on any Jpeg, or Tiff
file from any
camera. Printing
In
my experience, regardless of how
intense some uncorrected pictures
might look on screen, they'll
probably look great in print
without any correction - bold,
bright, and colorful. Hope
for the future Perhaps
Nikon's upcoming D2H firmware
upgrade will make this page
obsolete. Let's hope so
...
Original.jpg)
Click
to enlarge / 1199 x 794 pixels,
351
KB
LCH-10+2.jpg)
Click
to enlarge / 1199 x 794 pixels,
347
KB
LCH-15-3.jpg)
Click
to enlarge / 1199 x 794 pixels,
340
KB
LCH-20-8.jpg)
Click
to enlarge / 1199 x 794 pixels,
338
KB
Original.jpg)
Click
to enlarge / 1199 x 794 pixels,
315
KB
LCH2.jpg)
Mr. Hadari likes what he sees in
the corrected version. The
changes are subtle, but smooth.
And the picture retains a
natural, lively look.
Click
to enlarge / 1199 x 794 pixels,
315
KB