Was about to reply to another thread, but figured I might as well start a new one.
This is what I currently do, and seem to give me the results i want. Maybe helpful for others, or perhaps someone has better suggestions?
Been hunting a way to get skintones rights, as I sometimes screw up the WB in camera. And often i find even the graycard doesn’t get it completely right. I eventually have settled on this method. I wanted to avoid CMYK method and to be able to do it in DT. And from what I understand there are many different CMYK “spaces”, so its a bit pointless to use. I do this first thing when starting out. Well, after setting filmic.
RGB values changes with lightness, but as long as we first adjust WB early in pipeline by matching R value of the baseline, then later it should retain the WB (no?)
My current method:
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Get baseline RGB values at a given exposure/brightness level. Both my wife and kid fell into the “Light Asian” baseline here. Another baseline source or a previous image should work well. Just get a RGB baseline that has accurate skin tone for the subject.
Corel PhotoShop Skin Tones -
Adjust the exposure to match the baseline R value
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In White Balance module; Start adjusting Blue & Green. Then back to red & back and forth a few times in until they match the baseline exactly.
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Forget the white balance and continue to process.
If I color adjust anything later , I use mask to avoid changing skin tones.
My eyes have proven not to be trustworthy to do this on feel, so this has at least helped me allot.