Color & Tone

Why Your Portrait Colors Look Wrong (And the Correction Order That Actually Fixes It)
Color & Tone

Why Your Portrait Colors Look Wrong (And the Correction Order That Actually Fixes It)

The Edit That Made a Client Say “She Looks Sick” I sent off a gallery to a beauty client a few years back, feeling genuinely proud of the work. Clean skin, lifted shadows, the whole thing. Her response was three words: “She looks sick.” I zoomed in on the hero shot and finally saw what she meant. The model’s skin had this greenish, underwater cast that I had completely stopped seeing after two hours staring at the same image.

Why Your Portrait Colors Look Wrong (And the Correction Workflow That Actually Fixes It)
Color & Tone

Why Your Portrait Colors Look Wrong (And the Correction Workflow That Actually Fixes It)

A few years into my retouching work, a beauty client sent back a batch of edits with a single line of feedback: “The skin looks like it was painted on.” I stared at my monitor for a long time after that. The tones were smooth. The highlights were clean. Technically, everything was fine. But she was right. The images felt embalmed rather than alive, and I knew exactly why. I had corrected the color, but I hadn’t corrected it for skin.

Why Your Portrait Colors Look Wrong (And the Correction Order That Fixes It)
Color & Tone

Why Your Portrait Colors Look Wrong (And the Correction Order That Fixes It)

A few years back, I finished what I thought was a beautiful set of beauty edits for a skincare brand. Smooth skin, clean background, nice and bright. I sent the gallery over feeling genuinely proud. The creative director wrote back within an hour: “The skin looks a little… gray? And her lips are almost purple. Can you fix the color before we go further?” I stared at my monitor. The skin looked fine to me.