Flawless: The Secrets of Skin

I took this seminar to fill a gap I had which was skin tones of non-white subjects. Just in my immediate family I have dark-medium and light african-american skintones and to say I needed help when editing a picture of the three of us was an understatement. There are great resources here on CM for skintones like PS101 which devotes a week to color correction with CMYK values in Photoshop, SarahW's tutorial within the forums on skintones with CMYK values, as well as PS201 covering skintones as well. What I found lacking in these previous resources I have found in the skin workshop.

This seminar goes beyond CMYK values to discuss shooting for great skin to color-space, luminance, and color processing for all types of skintones. There are walkthrough edits in the 191 page PDF in both PS and LR as well as editing videos that accompany the PDF that illustrate edits in both PS and LR.

If you are struggling with skintones be it newborn, non-white, old, or multi-subject pictures with lots of different skintones; I think you'll have trouble finding a better resource.

I have been studying skin and color for at least one year now. It has been a difficult and frustrating journey! I have often blamed my monitor/calibration for the skin/color errors I made in post production. When I saw this program available to us CM's I was quick to make the investment. I could not be happier and know it was the best thing I have done for myself and my images. The material has filled the gaps that other books and webinars I previously studied, left me to search for the answer or figure out on my own. This program is nicely laid out and takes you through from start to finish. You will not be disappointed with this workshop. The editing videos watching Sarah work are priceless, everything seemed to come together and was confirmation I am on the right track. Thank you. I would have paid more for this program, the price is a steal of a deal.

Flawless is a breakout created with generosity, love and full intention. The breakout is jam packed with information to help you get the best skin you can in your images. It is easy to get overwhelmed when you see a huge PDF brimming with content but Sarah gives us a “disclaimer” that her breakout is not meant to be devoured and digested in one sitting. For me, I am plan on reading and doing, reading and doing till shooting best for skin becomes second nature. For me, my mastery goals for photography is a journey, not a quick means to an end, so I am OK with the size and depth of this breakout. I highly suggest it.

Wow! This is heavy stuff. When I first started I thought a lot of this was way over my head and I’d gotten in too deep. It really helped me to find the holes in my knowledge though and so some of the things I researched separately (zone system, spot metering, ETTR) and I think it’s really helped even the way I take photos for flattering skin. Not super useful if you use Elements and it sounds like she recommends using CS5 and the even some of her basic edits don’t really translate into Elements usability (there may be ways to do some of her edits though the menus looks really different but already without being able to use ProPhoto RGB and 16 bit in Elements, you’re behind) and she very highly recommends photoshop CS for most accurate skin readabilility at least til you train your eyes. However, she does teach you how to read and adjust the RGB values in Lightroom and offers just as many Lightroom adjustments and follow alongs as she does with CS. Overall I would definitely recommend this workshop, I learned a ton and though I never think my eye will be as great as hers (hopefully with some training it will improve) and she saw things I never would think of or understand her thought process (too much magenta in face creases, what have I gotten myself into1?)I have seen a huge improvement in my photos and it does make me think about trying to identify the correct skin tones and keep my eye on it in processing. It was especially helpful where she talks about correcting skin for more than one ethnicity since I am very fair skinned with a dark skinned African American husband and light skinned son and I feel comfortable making these edits now. I think I will definitely be referring back to this frequently and can continue to learn from it as my photography knowledge increases as well and more of the pieces fit together.

Fan-flippin-tastic! I cannot recommend this enough - Sarah goes above and way beyond in this class! My client portraits have NEVER been this color accurate... and I thought they were!! But now, they're on a whole different level. 100% true to the eye color. I have read the materials over & over and learn something new each time. If you have ever gotten back a print and thought it could be a bit better or needed a bit more "realistic" ooomph, then this is going to rock your world. Worth every penny...

Better than I hoped for. I have been a photographer for 20 years but I only became a professional portrait photographer 2 years ago. I was hoping this eclass wouldn't be too "beginner level". Ii isn't. I learned so much and the great thing is the class is designed for all levels.

It is very organized, detailed yet concise. I highly recommend it to any portrait photographer who wants to nail skin color!

A Must Have if You Have (or are Contemplating) Professional Portrait Photography. This breakout was so chock full of information I found useful - it helped me understand what really good skin exposure and color is and why "getting skin right" is so hard for so photographers (including many professionals). I now know exactly how to get the correct exposure for skin and how to fix any problems in post processing - both in Photoshop and in Lightroom. This breakout covers every possible situation a photographer might encounter related to different skin types, but it is not just about skin. It's also about color post-processing in general. I am not a novice photographer, and there was so much information that was either (a) new to me or (b) explained in a way that finally made sense. The best money I have spent on photography education.

Game changer. The info Sarah provides is invaluable. It has given me a lot more confidence in my colour edits.
Highly recommended.

AH-MAZING! This is by far the most comprehensive guide for skin color. I have taken classes and tutorials and nothing else has come close. I have simply not seen anything like this anywhere else. Thank you, Sarah, for taking the time to develop this guide and sharing your incredible, in-depth knowledge!

This is an amazing guide. Yes, it's very dense, and the meat of the material is in PDF form. I'm a book learner, and it works very well for me--amazing, really. It's the perfect balance of enough why, how, and examples/screenshots. It's necessarily technically deep on the math behind skin, but to me, that's necessary to really understand what makes skin so finicky to get right. It's really an amazing guide, one of the best, well thought-out and well put-together tutorials I've ever read (including from my professional life!)