Need advice regarding skin tone/detail

[rwchisholm]

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Hello! I have been taking some half-body portrait shots, both with natural light and with fill flash (canon 580 on manual) and have noticed that, on the normal exposure settings, I am losing highlight detail (around the cheek bones). I am wondering what you guys who shoot a lot of portrait work or fashion (feel free to chime in, Guy), do about this. I am thinking that the in camera compression processing algorithm is to blame, and wondering if setting the exposure bias down a third will help from blowing out these highlight detail, allowing the post processing to compensate for the exposure. Any thoughts/advice? Thanks -rob

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[garyvot]

Hello! I have been taking some half-body portrait shots, both with natural light and with fill flash (canon 580 on manual) and have noticed that, on the normal exposure settings, I am losing highlight detail (around the cheek bones). I am wondering what you guys who shoot a lot of portrait work or fashion (feel free to chime in, Guy), do about this. I am thinking that the in camera compression processing algorithm is to blame, and wondering if setting the exposure bias down a third will help from blowing out these highlight detail, allowing the post processing to compensate for the exposure. Any thoughts/advice? Thanks -rob

 

I doubt very much you are seeing anything related to in-camera compression.

 

You haven't stated whether you are shooting RAW or JPEG, but if shooting JPEG, you might try reducing the contrast setting on the camera and biasing your exposure a bit more for highlight detail. It's generally easier to boost contrast a bit in post than to risk blowing detail because the camera has applied an inappropriate tone curve.

 

Even though I shoot RAW I still treat digital like shooting chromes: "expose for the highlights, and let the shadows fall where they may". (Yes, I'm aware of the theory behind expose to the right and I'm happy for others who choose to follow this practice, but it's not for me.)

 

Hope this helps.

 

Gary

[Jamie Roberts]

What Gary said about highlights.

 

Don't forget that skin without a lot of makeup / powder is essentially reflective and oily too; high contrast point-source light over-exposes more easily than people sometimes think and can be hotter than an averaging meter suggests.

[tom0511]

For me -1/3 is a general setting as long as I dont shoot very low contrast subjects.

cheers, Tom