Pleasing Skin Tones

I like this tutorial less for following the guidelines exactly as they explain them, but more for what it teaches you to get to where you want. Pleasing Skin Tones is a Digital Photoshop Class unto itself, written by Dan Margulis, who also offers his book at Amazon called Professional Photoshop: The Classic Guide to Color Correction for around $13 at my check (no I'm not making any money recommending his book).

I checked a photo I had taken yesterday at a Portrait shoot with a client who had done her makeup to perfection for a Real Estate business card and asked me to lighten the blush on her cheek. I did only that. It looked fine. Then I followed the tutorial every step exactly as explained and what occurred was a general toning down, a good thing, but also a cast which the client was not happy with. Fortunately I printed out both as proofs. She chose mine with, under CMYK restraints, at 24-Yellow, 25-Magenta & 8-Cyan. The tutorial's instructions were to adjust to 30-Yellow, 24-Magenta & 8-Cyan.

So even though these values are very close my advice is to always check with your own eyes. Don't blindly go in lock-step with any tutorial as lighting conditions, camera settings and client expectations offer too many exceptions to this rule. All in all though a great tutorial for learning the HOW of settings.

Take a run at this then let us know how it worked for you. If it turns out good and you don't yet have an online Gallery try Kodak

BTW, if your monitor is calibrated & you are using an ICC Profile for the paper type you will get accurate results, otherwise what you see on your LCD may not even be accurate.