Skin tones in natural light are greatly influenced by the subtle shifts from shadow to light. Golden hour and midday sun both have different color temperatures, and although this can influence skin tones, it more so creates a gradient between the areas of the body where the light can’t reach and where it can. Pay attention to the transitions between the shadows and highlights because they give depth to the skin, and it is these subtle transitions that can be lost when editing. Skin tones vary, but no matter how fair or deep the skin is, there’s a fine line between enhancing and completely distorting the original tones.
Light scattering and absorption is the key to successful skin color grading. This is why when retouching skin in cloudy environments with diffused light it appears more even and smooth, while in direct light, contrast reveals pores and wrinkles, and why in skin retouching it’s crucial to recognize the correct hues and adjust the color accordingly. For example, olive complexion may shift into more yellow hues in the bright and more red in the shadow areas during sunset, and if the light had a specific color temperature, then the color of the skin needs to be adjusted to compensate for that, because it’s not ideal to correct the entire image and compromise its integrity in order to have even skin tones.
A direct use of this in retouching is colour grading, for example, to achieve a more realistic look. In a source image, look for the brightest area of the face (the area most lit by the light), the darkest area (shadiest), and using curves or levels, bring up those areas a touch to maintain detail, without clipping. With layered masking, it’s easy to control the extent of an edit, so it smoothly transitions across the different planes of the face, from the flat forehead to the more rounded cheek. This is one way to add emotional impact to an image. Skin tones can evoke healthiness, happiness or ethnicity. Working with a few source images of the same face in different lighting, teaches you how to make this editing decision more instinctively.
It can be tricky to get a seamless result, especially when there are mixed sources of light, for example, when working on a beauty image that was shot half outside and half inside with different color temperatures. In this case, frequency separation is a great tool that helps to separate texture and color and even out the tone without losing the details. Isolate the low frequency layer and try to even out the jump in tone caused by the different lights. It is important to have a light hand and not to rush the process. If you rush, you will end up having tone spots that will stand out. Try to take small steps, zoom in and out to see the entire image and make sure that the result will look natural.
In the end, skin tones transitions in natural light isn’t just about retouching but it is about interpretation. It’s a form of intimacy between the retoucher and the model. A tribute to the peculiarity of every image. Natural light and shade are always changing with the seasons and the place so it does the retoucher. Improving on this subject is improving our capacity of seeing the world. Telling a story in our daily ordinary pictures.