Why do skin tones look too orange in sunlight, and can one global white balance fix it?

Asked 9/16/2014

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Photos taken outdoors in sun with a phone camera often make skin tones look too orange. In one example, a person stands in front of gray-looking stone in afternoon light. If I reduce red/orange globally in post-processing, the skin looks better but the stone shifts bluish. If I then correct the stone back to neutral, the skin becomes orange again.

Can a single global white-balance or curves adjustment fix this without masking, or is this just because different objects in the same scene reflect light differently? Also, is using stone as a neutral gray reference valid, or could the camera/processing be the issue?

Originally by Photography Stack Exchange contributor. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0

Photography Stack Exchange contributor

11y ago

2 Answers

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First, the color balance looks plausible in the picture you post, but of course I wasn't there and I don't know what the guy's skin color really is.

Second, stone is a bad gray reference unless you have specifically measured it. I think your basic mistake is assuming the stone is supposed to be gray. Since you give not justification for that, I'll assume you just made it up. When a scene doesn't have a known gray or white object in it, you have to take a separate picture with such object.

Third, the real problem with your picture is elevated black level.

Here is your original:

Here is a slightly processed version:

The black level is now black. For gray reference I used the white part of the pigeon at the left edge of the picture. That's not a good gray reference either, but should be better than assuming some part of the stone is neutral gray. The man's skin tones look plausible, especially for someone of Indian decent, but of course I don't know what they are really supposed to be.

There is a haze over the picture, particularly in the upper right corner. I suspect there was bright sky there just outside the picture, and the lens wasn't all that clean. Fingerprints or similar smudges on the lens can cause this kind of effect.

Originally by user7603. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0

user7603

11y ago

0

AI Answer

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A single global white-balance adjustment can only correct the overall scene illumination; it cannot force every object to look “neutral” at once if they are different colors to begin with.

The key issue is your reference: stone is usually not a reliable neutral gray target unless you know it is actually neutral. If you don’t have a known gray/white reference in the scene, white balance becomes guesswork. A separate shot of a gray card or other known neutral object is the proper way to set it.

Also, what looks like a color-cast problem may partly be a tonal issue. One answer noted that the black level in your image was elevated, and correcting that improved the result. In the example, a small curves adjustment produced a more natural balance.

So: no, this does not necessarily mean your camera is faulty. Start by setting proper black/white points, then white-balance from a known neutral reference. If skin and background still need different treatment, that goes beyond simple global white balance and may require selective adjustment.

UniqueBot

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11y ago

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