Natural light for accurate skintones

'Natural light is best', so the saying goes. In general, natural light can be better for accurate colours, compared to regular home or work artificial lighting. However, 'natural light' (from the Sun) can vary tremendously, as I hope to illustrate in this blog post, with a series of no makeup selfies. No makeup, so the apparent skin tone isn't masked.

The iris colour was sampled digitally below each image. The eyebrow, skin colour and sclera 
​'white' was sampled on the side.

All the pics in this blog post were taken with a low spec smartphone camera (Samsung) to test out lighting conditions before I make my recommendations for virtual colour analysis. Colour analysis from a photo is useless unless the photo is as accurate as possible. Note that I am not after the most flattering, pleasing or artistic photo but rather the most accurate photo without fancy equipment. 

I did these tests with a smartphone rather than my specialist cameras, as most people have access to a smartphone.

I made sure any auto colour enhancements (such as pumping up saturation to make blue skies look bluer) were turned off. I didn't use filters. I didn't happen to have a white T-shirt (as typically recommended), so used a white towel to cover my clothing. This was to avoid reflection from colours up onto my face plus to help reflect available light.

In the first image, comparing the apparent colour of one of my eyes, the pic on the left was taken indoors looking directly towards a window which has a white net curtain (to reduce glare and for privacy). The pic on the right was taken outside the window, standing in the shade, looking towards reflected light off a brightly coloured building. So, pretty much from the same spot, just inside and outside of the window.

My eye colour is hazel and they can look different colours under different lighting and what clothing I wear (reflecting the colour). Depending on the light, I have been told my eyes look brown, green or yellow. An artist in a mall did my portrait with blue eyes, when I was wearing a blue top.

My skin tone is medium warm to neutral and I can tan easily to a medium to deep brown colour. My natural hair is neutral dark brown: 'chocolate' (according to my hairdresser). I haven't gone grey yet in my fifties but I think my hair colour has softened a bit, since it went dark in puberty. My hair colour was more of a warm chestnut brown when I was a child.

Some call my skin tone 'olive' (slightly green). However, I only see olive tones in my skin under extra terrible lighting (eg flurescent tubes).

The indoor pic washes out my colouring a bit and makes my dark brown eyebrows look grey. The pic even makes the 'white' of my eye look bluish grey.  I didn't do a colour reference to easily remove any colour cast.

The pic on the right is more representative of my skin and eye colouring. With a greyscale comparison, it's easier to see that the pic on the left is washed out, without the range of lights and darks.

Tip: It's easier to take an in-focus eye colour pic by turning the camera around and using the timer. So use the back camera up close, rather than the front camera.

I took a series of selfies on a single day, which had various lighting conditions. The compilation below is from indoors, looking directly at a window (in rooms with just one window).

I held up a piece of snow white cardboard with some notes written on. The white card was also so I could remove any colour cast, digitally, with a click of an eyedropper tool. The camera will have an auto white balance but there can still be a bit of a colour cast, such as the blue colour cast on the indoor eye pic. 

With both the indoor pics my hair 'read' by the phone camera as black-brown and my eyes 'read' as brown. After, all, the phone camera only has a small sensor which doesn't pic up on more subtle details as well as a specialist camera. Also, there was only one source of light. Professional portrait photographers actually use multiple directional sources of light, including a 'hair light', to show up the actual colour of the hair.

I think the most 'accurate' pic in the line up below was in the morning (not close to sunrise), when there was some indirect light coming through the window. Labelled 'morning sunny'. Morning and afternoon light is usually more of a neutral light temperature.

When it is overcast, this also tends to grey colours a little. When the sun is directly overhead, lighting can have a cooler, bluer temperature. When the sun is low in the sky (sunrise, sunset), lighting can have a warmer, more orange temperature.

When the Sun was positioned on the opposite side to the window, the only 'natural light' was reflected from a light house next door. My skintones in this lighting looked more pinkish. In the final pics, I supplemented lighting with artificial lighting.

Each pic was corrected using the white card as the reference. So the pics taken in the evening were less golden and the pics taken when the Sun was overhead were less blue.

In comparison, the photos below were taken the same day, to show the difference with outdoor lighting. There was a lot of glare, whether directly in the Sun (the worst for portraits), when overcast so that whole sky was grey or when the Sun was behind a cloud.

Glare is problematic for portraits in many ways. Hard not to squint, unflattering shadows under the eyes, plus the camera can't handle the blown out highlights. I will note also that both the towel and the concrete in my surroundings reflected very strongly adding to the glare.

If you happen to know anything about art or photography, you might know that Sun directly overhead, shade, overcast skies​ and cloud all make the light temperature cooler. This makes the apparent colours look bluer. In three of the pics below, my skintone looks more pink, which could be mistaken for a cool undertone. This was after removing the colour cast, which could look quite blue.

The most 'accurate' representation (yet still not great) pic of my colouring from the four pics below was the one taken in the shade, with some reflected light off a building to act as a 'fill light'. It's still a bit washed out though and not giving a range of skintones and the more accurate colours. 

The outdoor pics read my hair as black with greyish highlights. In other photos, in better lighting, my hair is definitely brown, often with warm highlights. The phone camera also incorrectly read my eyes as brown to black. Not really surprising, as the lighting was terrible.

I also converted the above images to greyscale, to see the tonal differences. As a rough guide, the 'better' pics have more of a range in greys and blacks, from lighter to darker. My colouring overall, is medium to dark.

In the greyscale pics below, one can see the first pic is actually quite washed out and flat with skin and lip values. So, all of the below are unsuitable pics.

In summary, the best pic from the above is the 'sunny morning' indoor pic for the overall skintone plus the 'outdoor' pic for the eye colour. Eye pics were taken in the afternoon for this comparison.

I will be compiling a blog post soon using a DIY colour checker to compare lighting and skintone. Basically, this is using some colours for extra information, instead of just a white piece of paper.

I am offering a reasonably priced custom personal virtual colour analysis service.  Using my skills gained from art, science (BSc) and photography. I will put together some guidelines for photos in the near future.