Whether you color grade in Adobe Premiere Pro, Apple Final Cut Pro, DaVinci Resolve, or some other video editor, the importance of the Skin Tone line is critical to getting your skin tones to look “normal.”
For those new to color correction and grading, a “color” is actually composed of three values:
For the purposes of this tutorial, let’s assume you want your characters to look “normal” or “realistic,” as opposed to a clandestine meeting in a dance club at 2 AM.
NOTE: This is also the same reason we use make-up on actors; to minimize imperfections and provide the illusion of normalcy.
Let me also state up-front that our goal in color grading is NOT to make people “look like they look in real-life.” Rather, our goal is to make people look “believably normal.” As you watch folks walk by on the street, everyone looks a bit different. But, we all fall into a very narrow range of skin hues.
Why? Because the color of our skin is caused by the color of the red blood flowing through it. And all our blood is the same color. In general, skin is a translucent gray. You know this yourself when you get cleaned up in the morning. You see a piece of dead skin and, surprisingly, it’s gray. That which gives skin its color is the red blood underneath.
Alexis Van Hurkman created an outstanding reference to color correction and grading in his “Color Correction Handbook.” In it, he showcased all the different ranges of human skin tone. What he discovered is that skin gets shades of light or dark from the melanin in our skin, while the hue comes from blood.
Here are some examples.
On the left is the vectorscope from Premiere Pro. On the right is the vectorscope from Final Cut Pro. Notice in both cases (red arrow) the skin tone line going up left.
NOTE: In Final Cut, you need to enable the display of the Skin Tone Indicator from the Scope menu. Which is silly. This indicator should default to on.
Here’s our first example, a young woman wearing a light-colored top. We would call her “white,” but she isn’t white. The background is white. Her top is beige. Her skin is clearly a mid-tone value that ranges from about 50% to 80% in gray scale.
In both Premiere (left) and Final Cut (right) her skin color is right on the skin tone line in the vectorscope. While her saturation varies, as indicated by the distance from the center of the scope, her color does not.
NOTE: To simplify the images in this tutorial, as both Premiere and Final Cut show the same scope values, I’ll use the scopes in FCP to illustrate. However the results apply equally to all video editing applications that have video scopes.
An older caucasian woman. Again, skin tones are right on the line.
An older caucasian man. The lower image crops to his face to better illustrate skin tone values.
An Hispanic woman.
An Asian couple.
A black woman.
In all these cases, while the grayscale value of each person’s skin is different, the color values are remarkably similar.
HOW THIS MATTERS
While all of us would like to create perfect images, life intervenes. Vagaries in lighting or exposure or costume can cause color values to change. Knowing where to set skin color values allows us to quickly compensate for these changes and make our on-camera talent look “normal.”
Again, “normal” is not appropriate when you want to set a certain mood – like late at night or illuminated by garish lighting. But for interviews, documentaries, and other conversational environments, we simply want our on-camera talent to look “right.”
QUICK SELECTION TIP
A fast way to determine and set skin color values is to crop the image so that only well-exposed skin is visible. Here, I cropped on her throat in Premiere and, as expected, the skin color values are right on the line. If they aren’t, the vectorscope indicates exactly what you need to do to correct them.
NOTE: It is a good idea to avoid selecting portions of the face due to the use of makeup. I tend to crop into a bare throat, arm or leg, which is more useful as a color guide.
A HELPFUL TABLE
Alexis compiled a very useful table of skin tone values in his Color Grading Handbook that can help you put values in the right spot.
| Skin Type | Gray-Scale | Color | Saturation |
|---|---|---|---|
| Female Caucasian | 50 – 70% | On to 2° above skin tone line | 40% |
| Male Caucasian | 45 – 65% | On to 2° above skin tone line | 35% |
| Female Asian | 40 – 60% | On to 2° below skin tone line | 35% |
| Male Asian | 35 – 50% | On to 2° below skin tone line | 30% |
| Female Hispanic | 35 – 50% | On to 2° above skin tone line | 35% |
| Male Hispanic | 30 – 45% | On to 2° above skin tone line | 30% |
| Female Black | 15 – 35% | On to 2° above skin tone line | 20% |
| Male Black | 15 – 35% | On to 2° above skin tone line | 15% |
NOTE: These values are guidelines, not absolutes.
SUMMARY
While the gray-scale and saturation values of human skin can vary by individual, hue (color) values are remarkably consistent. Which is a pretty cool thing to know.
NOTE: Here are two articles that explain how to make simple color corrections in Final Cut Pro and Premiere Pro.
18 Responses to The Secret to Setting Skin Colors Accurately
Excellent, and I thought I couldn’t learn anything new. Thank you.
George:
Smile… that’s my goal with everything I write.
Thanks!
Larry
Well done Larry! Excellent information for editors, even perhaps more significant if it could be understood by all human beings. Cheers!
Duane:
Smile… I was trying not to be political, but I agree with you.
Larry
As an African American, it’s been time and again brought to my attention that “under our skin, we (all races) are the same color.” And now, Larry, you present a higher-tech corollary of this old adage. Can we march together with this?
Michael:
Sigh…. I sure wish we could. It would make life a lot easier for all of us. Thanks for your comment.
Larry
P.S. Actually, on top of our skin, we’re all the same color. Just not the same gray-scale.
Very helpful. Glad to have this guidance and reference.
Maarten:
Thanks, I’m glad you liked it.
Larry
Larry, I’d love your ruling on where subjectivity enters. I appreciate the point you’re making, and I’ll use the advice! But (at least on my laptop) the woman in the off-white top has substandard skin tone. In the photo, she looks really orange. This is not believable skin tone unless it’s an ad for a bad spray tan. Yet technically, it checks out fine. Can you comment on how to adjust if the scope says you’re fine, but your eyes disagree?
Scott:
How do you know your monitor is accurate? How would you know if it wasn’t?
This is the big advantage of video scopes, they accurately display color information even if the monitor is mis-adjusted. As video creators, we’ve been dealing with inaccurate monitors for decades – this is one of the key reasons we use scopes to verify color information.
If your scopes are calibrated, similar to calibrating a video monitor, feel free to use your eyes to adjust color to something that seems more accurate.
But never assume your monitors are correct, unless you verify that they are.
Larry
Thanks, Larry. Fair point. I also work beneath an east-facing window, so my perception of color probably changes throughout the day.
Looks like I need to raise my color game. Thanks for the nudge!
Excellent information, especially after watching the Resolve Color webinar. Thank you, Larry!
Brian:
Glad you liked it. Thanks.
Larry
What do you think Alexis Van Hurkman means by his saturation percentages: what is the 100% mark along the skin tone line on the vector scope? I figure that 100% must be at the intersection of the skin tone line and a line drawn between the center of the 100% Red and Yellow targets (not the commonly shown 75% targets). Do you agree with the metric?
On that scale, 40% saturation seems garish to me, viewed on a calibrated Rec. 709 monitor: I’d go 30%-ish. What do you think?
Don:
Smile… well, you just made me spend time figuring out how to measure percentages on the Vectorscope.
I agree with you, assuming a line extending from the center of the Vectorscope to the 75% targets on the Vectorscope, caucasian skin looks better at 32% than 40%. (Which is, essentially, your 30%-ish comment.)
I’ll chat with Alexis about this in the future. For now, the important concept is that skin colors are, essentially, the same, but saturations are not.
Larry
Is correcting skin tones using the vectorscope equivalent to using the RGB parade scope to remove color casts? If so, won’t the two solutions diverge if the user wears makeup?
Earl
Earl:
Centering the dot in the Vectorscope is the same as making all three traces – red, green & blue – in the RGB Parade the same height. Personally, I find the Vectorscope easier to read. But the goal is the same, remove color casts by exactly balancing the amount of red, green and blue.
And, yes, makeup distorts this. This is why I use the crop/trim function to display just the forehead, neck or arm – which almost never has makeup – to verify skin tones.
Larry
Thank you Larry!