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Once again, a panel of experts advised me on this article (see below). Instead of relying on grading influencers, who are dependent on publishing new content at regular intervals, I have once again
content at regular intervals, I am once again relying on the experience of four senior colourists with decades of experience. Added to this are several weeks of intensive research, expensive further training (Resolve Colourist Advanced) and paid online platforms (Lowepost). In the end, I take on the role of a curator with the aim of collecting sensible solutions for frequently occurring problems.
In commercials, skintone treatments and spot adjustments are the order of the day. However, I also learnt from the experts that beyond this, for example with the rejuvenation of people by a decade, the limits of what is technically feasible are always being scratched. Of course, colourists always hope for the stroke of luck that complex shots are handed over to retouching experts.
The professionals also report that the time requirements in other areas, such as feature films, documentaries and image films, are now so high that professional colourists can often do little or nothing in the beauty sector. Of course, they are also less likely to work on complex cases: A production whose budget can afford external grading often also has at least one professional make-up artist on set. As a result, any abnormalities that are difficult to correct are moved to post. The extent to which the fact that such retouching is almost exclusively carried out on female actresses is socially questionable is something we unfortunately have to leave out of this article.
During my research, I learnt that some actresses, for example, have certain retouching steps contractually guaranteed. In addition to the rest of the grading of the feature film, between half a day and a whole day is then estimated for these edits. In order to ensure that this person does not stand out as having been retouched, their counterpart in the scenes in question often has to be retouched as well.
Even today, there are still clear differences in how much effort is put into male and female actors. For male actors, skin retouching, such as red discolouration or spots, is often retouched. For female actors, however, the adjustments are often more extensive. In this case, the adjustments go far beyond retouching the face, such as skin retouching or changing the colour of lipstick. For example, the hands are also worked on by adjusting the skin tone (often too reddish because there is no make-up) or rejuvenated using various techniques. Sometimes even the entire body contour is shaped with a grid (the Warper effect in Resolve). In commercials, the entire image is sometimes simply scaled down by 4 per cent to make the actress appear slimmer.
Nevertheless, editing steps in the beauty area can also be worthwhile for smaller productions, for example in the image film sector. They can be used to remove temporary blemishes from the protagonist, increase the production value or simply draw attention to other aspects by reducing details in a part of the image.
Face refinement
The often-discussed internal Face Refinement plugin is actually (as I have learnt from our experts) also used time and again in a professional environment. Both for skin retouching and for dark circles under the eyes or forehead wrinkles.
However, if the tracking or placement of the outline does not go well, the beauty plugin included in the delivery can also be used. For example, if the camera moves too much or the head is turned too far, the face refinement plugin gets confused again and again. The short shot length naturally benefits graders in the advertising sector, as the automatic analysis function of the plugin is less likely to fail. If it is wrong, very little can be adjusted manually. Whether the outline can be rotoscoped at some point is still up in the air. As a result, this tool is extremely polarising: it is often an enrichment, but in some cases it is also completely useless. In the following, we therefore use tools that can be used as alternatives and that allow a high degree of manual customisation.
Skin Tone
As Alexis van Hurkman impressively explains in his “Colour Correction Handbook” (Peachpit Press – is.gd/cc_handbook), the skin tone is a so-called memory colour. In other words, a certain hue range that is determined by the blood circulation and the oxygen content in the blood and is therefore very similar in all healthy people within a certain spectrum (see image).
The experts agreed that a healthy skin tone is an extremely important element that should always be kept in mind. But exactly how this is defined is a matter of taste. The preferences of the director and camera department are therefore clarified in preliminary discussions. There are also often personal preferences when it comes to saturation, i.e. how pastel the skin tones should be. The Skin Tone Indicator therefore definitely makes sense as an aid and general reference.
However, whether the skin tone is processed separately from the rest of the grading depends more on the type of production. In commercials, it is almost always treated separately with qualifiers and masks – in feature films it is never actually treated separately. There, you always try to grade largely with primaries, looking at the whole picture and the skin tone, and only use secondaries if it is either not possible otherwise or if two actors have very different skin tones. Professionals see the advantages of primaries in terms of speed and, above all, consistency within the image.
Skin retouching
Midtone Detail is usually used for general skin retouching. This tool increases the contrast at edges, but only in the medium and light brightness areas. This at least does not increase the noise in dark areas and is therefore also suitable as a general sharpening method. In combination with a coarse mask, for example around the head, and a qualifier on the skin, you can often achieve good results with Midtone Detail – the professionals agree. With the qualifier, however, care should be taken (for example with the saturation parameter) not to include the eyes or lips in the key. If you also want to give the skin more shine or a porcelain-like appearance, you can also use the key you have just created directly for this and simply raise the centres (gamma) with the wheels. This makes the skin a little softer in terms of contrast and at the same time usually reduces the saturation with the increase, making everything a little more pastel and porcelain-like.
If the focus is less on the general appearance of the skin and more on specific areas of skin, other tools are used. Sometimes a tracked mask with a blur on the area in question can be enough.
If this is not enough, a reduction in contrast (using Pivot), a slight blur and colouring with the wheels (most likely Offset) often helps to beautify the masked area and adapt it to the surrounding skin tone. The next stage, which is also used by our professionals, is node sizing. To do this, we first mask an area that is “flawless” and matches the skin structure and illumination of the area we want to enhance as closely as possible. In the Sizing area, we select the small Node Sizing tab and use Pan and Tilt to move this beautiful area to the unsightly area.
Now all we have to do is track the mask and adjust it to the size and, with a bit of luck, we’re done. Another option is called Patch Replacer and is also a supplied effect. It works like the clone tool in Photoshop by defining a source and a target. The many setting options would go beyond the scope of this article, but here is another important tip for tracking: switch from window tracking to FX tracking. Only then can a manually set tracking point be tracked. Then simply drag the target circle of the plug-in to the correct position and it should move correctly. Patch Replacer is only slightly different from Node Sizing, but for some it offers a more pleasant UI and a few more options for the settings. If none of this helps, there is probably no way around a compositing programme.
Circles under the eyes
Personally, I have always achieved very good results with dark circles using two very similar techniques. Both first require a tracked, soft mask around the dark circles under the eyes. Then it is basically a matter of increasing the brightness of the dark skin area, reducing the contrast in order to visually flatten the skin and adapt the skin tone to the surrounding skin.
In the first method, we reduce the contrast considerably and use Pivot to adjust the brightness to the surroundings. We then mainly use Offset (and Saturation if necessary) to give the area the right colour.
The second method is similar, but usually results in slightly more realistic skin tones with less reduction in the darkening of the eyes. First lighten the shadows with Lift until a light-coloured area is created. Now the 32 bit floating point calculation of Resolve comes into play: With Gamma we now lower the centres until a suitable brightness with a view of the surroundings is created again. If you now use the Lift and Gamma wheels to give the area the right colour, you often get very nice results.
Of course, both methods require good tracking and masking. If you have to render with handles or if shots are added, adjustments in this area are of course difficult, but you should keep this in mind with all the techniques in this article. Speaking of..
Eyes
First of all, it must be mentioned that adjustments to the eyes themselves are very difficult to transfer consistently to many settings. Either the tracking runs away from you or you have to adapt your editing to the lighting conditions, which is sometimes not always easy over many shots. As this is “only” a question of (rotoscoping) effort, we still don’t want you to miss out on the tricks.
If, for example, digital eyeshadow is to be applied, this is very straightforward with short shots. Simply apply a mask around the eyelid area, set softening, track and now adjust both the colour and the brightness with the gamma wheel. This creates both smokey eyes and different colours in a very natural way. When it comes to the iris and the white eye skin, the opinions of the experts differ, as an eye skin that is too light and desaturated looks extremely unnatural. One suggestion from the professionals was to increase the sharpness with a negative blur, with which I have often achieved beautiful results myself. This makes the eyesight a little more prominent, which makes the eye appear more reflective and therefore shinier, and the additional sharpness of the iris also draws the eye more to this part of the image. With the same intention, you can also enlarge the mask and “put on” the subject a mask that resembles diving goggles in shape and size. To lighten the whites of the eyes and the iris, Contrast together with Pivot is much more suitable than working with the Wheels, as this creates unnatural contrasts more quickly
unnatural contrasts are created more quickly. But as with everything in this area, less is often more. Enhancing the colour of the iris, on the other hand, is difficult as the surrounding eye skin and the eyelid are often difficult to keep out and are therefore also enhanced in saturation, which creates unwanted colour clashes.
Hair and beard
According to our experts, adjustments to long hair (for example in shampoo adverts) are often passed on to dedicated specialists or tackled during and before the shoot with lighting, styling and choice of model. However, if only minor retouching is required, this is already done by the grading department.
If, for example, the shine on the hair needs to be emphasised more, our experts mainly help themselves by increasing the contrast in these areas and sometimes adding a little sharpening. If there is discolouration in the hair, simple but very precise qualifiers are combined with tracked masks to precisely address the area in question.
Beards or light-coloured hair are rarely processed, according to our experts. In most cases, however, this is done with tracked masks and a little darkening. In my projects, I have already achieved really beautiful results when darkening areas of the beard or the entire beard, as they appear much thicker afterwards. All in all, a lot can be achieved with simple means in grading without having to go straight to the big compositing stage.
The experts
Sebastian Göhs
Sebastian Göhs is a freelance senior colourist from Berlin and works mainly on feature films, TV series and commercials. Most recently he worked on the Amazon show “Der Greif” and İlker Çatak’s feature film “Das Lehrerzimmer”. Sebastian began training as a film and video editor at Geyer Berlin in 2002. After graduating, he moved to Digilab and advanced to Senior Colourist. This was followed by the development and management
of the image department at Rotor Film and finally became self-employed. www.sebastian-goehs.com
Stefan Andermann
After training as a film and video editor at ARRI Film and TV Services, which lasted three years, Stefan Andermann worked in the dailies colour grading department for around two years, but was quickly given the opportunity to take on fine corrections. In the following 12 years, he worked in commercial grading at ARRI. He has specialised in feature films for around seven years and works at Pharos on cinema productions, for streaming services and TV productions. www.pharos.de
Andreas Brückl
Andreas Brückl started as a colourist at Bavariafilm in 2005 and worked as a freelancer from 2010. After four years in the advertising industry in Istanbul and a stopover in Malaysia, he moved to India in 2017. After four years of chaos and colour saturation in Bollywood blockbusters, he moved to Dubai for two years. He has been back in India with DNEG as a supervising colourist since 2023. www.baselight-colorist.com www.vimeo.com/colorgrading
Florian Wolf
In 2003, Florian Wolf began his career as a career changer in post-production and telecine at Pictorion das werk. He worked there as a junior colourist until 2009. From 2009 to 2011, he moved to ARRI Commercial Munich and was promoted to Senior Colourist. After a brief intermezzo at das werk Munich, he took the plunge into self-employment and has been working as a freelance senior colourist since 2011. In addition to colour grading, he offers the production of commercials, image films and music videos from concept to shooting including the entire post-production. www.flowolf.info
