That COULD be a separate feature… One that could be useful in generating masks displays I think or isolating image display similar to what color balance rgb masks tab can do… Can you do a FR for that? (hmmm… I think i’ve seen one like that, but i’d have to dig through issues… or maybe i’m misremembering)
btw: key takeaway here: “arbitrary skin tone indicator is a NONO”
But even with a self-setting hue line… what does it bring feature-wise ? You arbitrarily decide where good skin tones sit, and then what ? Is that yet-another-case of “painting by numbers” ?
@anon41087856 I understand your point “Skin” is an ethnically-defined object, so not sure I want to go there. But I saw this video for DaVinci and makes me analyze this from another perspective.
For the last few weeks, I have been studying color grading à la da Vinci Resolve.
They offer a clever approach, irrespective of where your model was born.
Here is a good presentation:
To clarify this a bit: There are at least two types of Melanin contributing to skin color, Eumelanin and Pheomelanin (Wiki) in addition to the known two colors of blood (O rich and CO_2 rich) which are usually close in terms of hue-angle. So skin-color is at least a 4-hue-angle thing.
The one ‘indicator line’ can only come close to reality, it’s highly likely that by taking that indicator as gospel you introduce inadvertently a bias, no one wants that. To discuss the (im)practicality of four indicator lines would be another thing, but would also require quite good spectroscopy data to even come up with the exact hue-angles. A skintone range of colors on a vectorscope tends to be so broad that I don’t think it would serve a purpose.
In addition there are studies suggesting that different viewers are sensitive differently to those hues. What looks right to you or the indicator line/range might not be what other people see even in controlled conditions with high color accuracy.
I agree that getting skin-color right(looking real/correct) on a display is very important, but the risk of people using the feature wrong could have massive repercussions (rightly so!). Calibrated displays, color-checkers-on-set and excellent camera profiles should have IMHO a much higher impact on getting skin-tones right than that skin-indicator line.
Remember: Film/TV/Broadcast has calibrated everything already in place before the data is displayed on a vectorscope.
A clever approach to what ? Standardizing skin tones ? I don’t understand the end goal here. Is it to make all skin look like some arbitrary acceptation of healthy skin ?
I have never looked at hues diagrams to edit skins and I find the whole idea appalling. You don’t need a graph to show you if skin looks good or not, you have a preview and eyes.
Also I feel we are mixing description and prescription. The Da Vinci guy shows that all retouched skins happen to have the same hue. Ok, that might be his editing taste, dunno. How does that translate to “all skin should have the same hue” ? Because you find something happens most of the time doesn’t automatically imply you should make it happen all the time.
It will be a sad day when we start editing pictures with a hue swatch books to match every standard color…
I agree with this. However, a configurable line might still be very helpful for matching different shots in general, not specifically related to skin tones.
There may be a way to tie it in to the color picker in a similar way that you now add live targets maybe there is a way to add the possibility to integrate the selection of a static one in the vector scope when you select within that interface to leverage as much existing code and data…or of course there is a more elegant solution I suppose…
I vote for a userdefined line or region; also, the option to change overlays. No need to judge the user: just allow them some flexibility. (It is another story for those who complain because they don’t know what they are doing and encounter a problem because of it.)
You get a reference dot now for a color picker selection in the vectorscope. Maybe you could click that dot and have the option to set a reference line mapped to that point created by the color picker??
This guy made a simple and clear explanation about how to read and understand the vectorscope, it will be helpful. I think the skin line indicator must be something like a guide, others may prefer a range of where the skin tone should be. If users like to work with it, fine, if don’t, equally fine, but they will have the choice in their hands, not the lack of it. Even an option of isolate the colors to have more control.
Anyway if devs are working in improvements maybe there will be an option of show or hide the skin/range indicator among other visual utility indicators.
There’s a difference between photographers and color grading staff. The latter needs to deliver consistent colors over plenty of single frames - and keep in mind that skin tones are detected as skin tones even when using heavy hue shifts to achieve an artistic look. The „real“ skin tone usually doesn’t matter.
Most photographers care about real skin tones, not about a norm skin tone.
Well, once we have put our cameras down and sit in front of software, we are all color grading staff. =)
The photographer in you might not care, but the Master Printer in me does. Giving consistency over hundreds or thousands of frames is one part of successful visual storytelling - wether the images are static or moving.
It’s just that the moving pictures industry is way ahead of photographers here and has the more evolved tools already.
i doubt hundreds or thousands of portraits share the same skin tone.
In movies no one cares about the real skin tone of an actor; in portraits most clients will be disappointed, if the real skin tone isn’t properly matched.
DanielLikesDT
(Daniel, who is an enthusiast for F/OSS and photography)
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As much as I agree to your statement - I am partly colourblind. So, I never touch colours when skin is in the picture. However, I would like to do it . Unfortunately, I can never be sure if the skin does not turn up greenish or otherwise unfortunate. Some kind of indicator if skin tones are acceptable would be highly appreciated.
