A few months ago I had posted questions about an underexposing A2E
camera body. With the help of the usual suspects I was able to improve
my picture taking skills and the A2E was acquitted of underexposing charges.
What still continues to perplex me is
1.) that even though my negatives look like they are correctly exposed - the
Labs I work with continually give me much darker portraits (that's about 90%
of my prints).
Also, most professionally taken pictures of my kids come out to be much darker
than the true skin tone.
2.) the digital pictures that I take with my Sony camera are fine on the computer
monitor but mostly the prints from the labs come darker than expected.
I have my theory on why this happens:
* Most labs are set up to print for mostly Caucasian skin tone and the equipment
is biased towards a tanned skin tone look . In Asia where I come from people
are flattered by a lighter skin tone.
My experience is that printing in Asia is biased towards a lighter than correct
skin tone and professional pictures of my kids from studios in Asia show that.
My experience seems to indicate that most prints processed in the US are
always biased to be darker (for a flattering tanned look).
As a case in the point - I have heard that all mirror manufacturers bias their
mirrors to show a thinner image of the person seeing themselves in it and
people tend to dislike mirrors which show a less flattering real size image
of themselves. (Hence a lot of you must have heard people exclaim that
they look more plump in their pictures as they are used to their thinner image
which they see everyday in the mirror.)
Please comment if my theory on "tanned look" biased printing holds any water.
Any suggestions on what magic words to use to get the lab to print correct skin tones.
(I have tried writing "lighter prints" on my order).
Regards,
Sarbjit Singh
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