Why am I getting red faces with studio shoot?

<p>I am shooting business head shots in my studio and can't figure out why the faces are soooooo red -- especially the last couple of days.<br /> I have a small one-room studio. I am using a 3 x 4 softbox with studio light and a large silver reflector on the other side. The exposures seem about right. I do not recall the men's faces being especially red but wow, they look sunburned! Not sure why it's been past couple of days though I have had 'red' trouble before in various situations in the past. I wonder if a white reflector or flash for fill might be better than reflector. I am not really doing anything different from before.<br /> I am using a D700 and the white balance set to auto. I checked the WB/color adjustment option within menu and it's set at zero. Shot RAW. <br /> Neither of these two men were wearing anything red that could've reflected up. There is nothing red in the room such as walls. There is not much, or any, green in the room that might've caused camera to add red. In some photos my overhead office/studio lights were on and in some they were totally off, dark room. Did not seem to be a difference. <br /> I am wondering if anyone has any thoughts as to why I'm getting such red faces. <br /> Secondly...... how can I now fix? Just play with the WB sliders in ACR?<br /> Thank you.</p>

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<p>Don't shoot in auto WB while you're in controlled lighting like that. Just take the 15 seconds it takes to set up a custom WB for the light that's actually hitting your subjects. Or, shoot a (true) neutral gray (<em>not</em> a blown-out-white) WB target once you're set up, and then use it to apply as a batch correction to <em>all</em> of the shots that happen under that light. Which only takes a couple of mouse clicks in post.<br /><br />If you're really working with RAW files, you have all the latitude you need to fix this. Get one of them looking right, and then apply that change to all of them so you don't have to fiddle with them individually.<br /><br />Also: what is a "studio light," in this context? Are you talking about fluorescent light bulbs? Incandescents? Flash? That all matters.</p>

Thank you. I need to master custom wb.

 

Studio light is an alien bee 800. So a flash.

 

Yes, they are raw.

<p>If all (or all that matters) of your light is coming from the B800, just set your WB directly to daylight, since that's more or less what's coming out of the flash tube.<br /><br />But shooting a WB target for reference when you're in post is the most accurate thing to do.</p>

<p>Another possibility is that you are using a slow shutter speed and some tungsten ambient light is contributing to the exposure.</p>

<p>Pls. show an example or two.</p>

<p>Tom M</p>

<p>How are you triggering the Alien Bee? If it's the pop-up flash or other TTL flash do you have TTL turned off? I believe you can do that with the Nikons (and some of the newest Canons). If you have TTL active then the studio light is going off with the pre-flash and the actual exposure is just catching the last part the flash or just the modeling light, which will be red compared to a flash tube.</p>

<p>Dan</p>

<p>Auto WB is the problem. Not sure why people use it. For flash, you want the camera set at daylight/flash (both are about the same). People seem to go crazy over WB but remember that until digital came along there were only two choices, daylight/flash and tungsten. For the most part, you can leave your camera on flash/daylight. Switch to tungsten if shooting under hot lights, and fluorescent if shooting under fluorescent lights. If you're shooting with household lightbulbs, tungsten will get you close but a manual WB will get you closer. Manual can also be good under fluorescent because fluorescent bulbs vary a little from one type to another. Definitely do manual for stadium/parking lot lighting (mercurcy/sodium vapor). Where it gets tricky are mixed situations, like rooms lit by fluorescent but daylight coming through the windows.</p>

<p>Has it been cold outside?</p>

<p>you might also check your shooting profile on your camera. im not familiar with how nikon does it but if its set for a certain profile it may be adding a bit to the red channel. I cant recall offhand what the name of the profile I use but its a blank slate, no color modifications at all, that way I can make any necessary adjustments in post. <br>

good luck<br><p><B>URL signature removed. Not allowed per photo.net Terms of Use.</b></p></p>

<p>Underexposed images can be too red with Nikons... Also check to make sure your dlighting is off and saturation is neutral. I would bet something in the saturation setting is set to portrait or whatever your camera model uses.</p>

 

<p>Thank you. Yes, I have noticed that any underexposure seems to increase the red issue. Haven't heard about dlighting. Will check that. I'm pretty sure sat. is at neutral. D700. Thanks again. Trouble with underexposures by the way is that any more exposure puts too much light on face and I get hotspots, consequently when I properly expose the face the rest tends to be a bit underexposed. So I have to work on getting a better mix that way or light position. <br>

Thanks to others as well. I thought I responded to every post here but I don't see my responses. Hmmm......</p>

<p>Nikon emphasizes red to the detriment of its rendition of skin tones, to begin with. So if you're off in your white balance or exposure, skin tones can get notably red rather quickly. Often it's enough to bump the green (i.e., reduce magenta) a couple of notches, but sometimes you need to move the yellow-blue slider a bit toward blue as well. </p>

<p>Even after getting white balance correct, you may still decide you want to reduce overall red in curves by a point or two at the middle.</p>

<p>Thanks a lot.</p>