filters and portraiture

[chris_4622]

Does anyone use yellow or orange filters when making portraits? I have a subject I'll be photographing and she has fair skin but freckles on her chest which I'd like to minimize. I was thinking of trying an orange filter with a factor of 3.
Comments or experiences?
chris

[Pere Casals]

To learn what you prefer you may take Photoshop and make the BW conversion (Image->adjust->bw) from color while adjusting levels.

What happens with real film is close to the Ps simulation.

[cowanw]

Yep, orange is right. You may want to consider cyan lipstick for similar, but opposite reasons. Hair tones may change. Do a test series to evaluate what you like.

[Emmanuel BIGLER]

Hi!

In the past, portraits recorded on panchromatic film with tungsten light
were recommended with a green filter.
I do not remember, however, about the real reasons for that, not sure it will minimize skin defects, on the contrary!

This is what Leslie Strobel says:
With tungsten illumination, panchromatic films tend to record blue (due to the film's high sensitivity to blue) and red (due to the high red contents of tungsten illumination) too light in terms of the print, so a light green filter, which absorbs some of these colors, serves as a correction filter. The red sensitivity of some panchromatic film has been increased during manufacture to increase the overall film speed. Use of the film without a filter, for portraiture, may result in unnatural skin tones.

(View Camera Technique, 7-th edition, page 219)

But the kind of light (natural light, tungsten or whichever other source) in use will command the effect of any colored filter.

At the other extreme of the spectrum, I've seen an interesting demo of portraits with wet plates (wet collodion).
Wet plates being sensitive only to blue (and UV) light, green, yellow or red filters will probably have little or even no effect in this case. The portraitist use big spiral fluorescent lights.

[Ulophot]

Emmanual, tunsten light is comparatively more yellow/orange than sunlight. Therefore, it's illumination of a scene will tend to render objects with those same hues -- in this case, skin with orange-ish freckles -- lighter than would the bluer daylight. An orange filter on the lens performs a similar function, passing more of this warm end of the visual spectrum than the cooler hues.

[chris_4622]

Some things I hadn't considered; stobes vs. tungsten for one. I'll be using strobes which are 5500K, if I want to separate the lips then use some sort of blue lipstick. Hair won't be an issue since it's dark. In the end I'll try some with the filter and some without. This project won't take place for a month or two so I have time to practice.
What brought this whole thing up was this; in all my reading over the years of well known photos and photographers in the portrait field I can't really recall anything being said about the use of filters as a matter of standard use.

[Pieter]

In "The Print," Ansel Adams writes: "Filters may be helpful in altering flesh tones: a #8 [yellow] filter is sometimes useful, but there is the possibility of creating a pasty or milky skin tone and pale lips with panchromatic film, depending on the subject's complexion. The use of a greenish filter...will tend to give more vigorous flesh values, most noticeable in the lips and ruddy or sunburned skin." This is all for sunlight, so it would also apply to strobes.

[Pieter]

Oops, that was in "The Negative."

[alexmuir]

I’ve seen it stated in a book on film-based photography that red or orange filters can be used to lessen the appearance of skin ‘blemishes’, and yellow-green can be used to emphasise skin tone, and features. Unfortunately, I can’t recall which book!I’ve used a yellow-green filter for that purpose, with studio flash, and it certainly gives a stronger tone to white skin. I once used orange, or possibly red, for portraits of my daughter. She was a teenager at the time, and had some marks on her skin. The filter effectively removed them, but the overall effect was of a very pale complexion. That was under natural light, and I didn’t use any corrective makeup for lips. Perhaps you could experiment by shooting some 35mm or 120 film before going large? Lighting will, as always, affect the overall result from a particular film/filter combination.
Alex


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[Jim Noel]

I wonder why you want to diminish the freckles. They are a part of the subject, and many veryniceprotratis have been made emphasizing,not hiding, them

[Pieter]

On that note, see https://www.hasselblad.com/stories/brock-elbank-cmn-how-do-you-c-me-now/

[cowanw]

Can't someone ask a question and not be judged?

[Drew Wiley]

People themselves come in all kinds of flavors; so there's no realistic way a generic answer can be given. And then you might encounter mixed ethnicity couple or group portraits, which pose their own challenges. It also depends on your specific film choice. An extended red pan film will differ quite a bit from an orthopan film in this respect, and certainly from a true orthochromatic film. The old Kodak film guides cover a lot this. Quite a bit also depends on what the client themselves wants to look like. A businessman might want to look a bit wrinkled and mature, while a teenager certainly doesn't want his zits accentuated. But the conventional advice to carry a light yellow-green filter like a Hoya X0 or Wratten 11 to make typical pan film better resemble natural vision tonality is a good starting place. Orange and red filters have to be very circumspectly used or they can make pale complexions look paste-like. But if carefully used, they can make freckles and brownish age spots less apparent. A deeper green filter like a Hoya X1 is helpful to simulate the Ortho look, which was once routinely applied to older men. For outdoor portraiture, you also have to factor in how you want the overall scene, including vegetation, to be rendered. When in doubt, practice beforehand. But it's helpful to carry several filters in your kit. Color film is a slightly different topic, but also benefits from having more than one filter on hand.

[chris_4622]

Well, thanks for all the replies. I use Fp4+. At this point I’ll try using a couple different filters just to see first hand...

[alexvaras]

My wife told me yesterday freckles are trendy this season, she is never wrong (but please don't tell her).

[LabRat]

Filters are used for corrective purposes, especially for commercial portraits... An honest portrait is ok...

A trend is to make people look horrible, I guess it is an edgy look...

Then there are wet plate portraits...

Steve K

[Jim Jones]

Infra-red film gives an even paler skin exaggeration than a red filter, but it does reduce freckles. It makes having an IR converted mirrorless digital camera just for that purpose. Better yet, tell your model, "A girl without freckles is like the night sky without stars!"

[Pere Casals]

IMHO we may modify a bit filtration to reduce freckles, but this may modify the portrait too much. But we have two alternatives, one is Photoshop and the other one is makeup.

Many times if a girl does not want freckles a photographer won't notice it, because the right makeup will be on the freckles.

If having to reduce freckles perhaps best is a bit of makeup plus a bit of filtration plus a bit of photoshop.

[Drew Wiley]

Yeah... Photoshop. You can replace someone's whole head that way. Just have them choose one out of a catalog.