Skin Tones in RGB

**Ace Corona** · 11-11-2011, 01:51 PM

I have Photoshop version 6 (from 2000), and I'm a beginner with Photoshop. I have a book that showed me how to make a Caucasian skin tone with RGB, but what about African-American skin tone and Latina skin tones? I have a female character that is Mexican-American, and I would like to be able to make a light to medium brown skin tone for her, and a slightly darker skin tone for an African-American character in that same story. I would also like to be able to make gradations of brown skin tones for characters that are full-blooded Mexican and half-Mexican (one would be darker brown, the other lighter brown).

Is there an online guide that shows you how to make different skin tones in RGB? If you can link me to such a guide, I would be grateful, or if you can't, just try to give me a Latina skin tone and an African-American skin tone.

Thanks!

**CyberLord** · 11-11-2011, 05:53 PM

Ace Corona:
An excellent resource for this is "Digital Prepress for Comic Books" by Kevin Tinsley. Page 84 of my edition lists many suitable selections for people of color such as C20M50Y100, where "C" is cyan, "M" is magenta, and "Y" is yellow. Other selections are C10M40Y70, and C10M35Y40.
The problem is that if, and it's a large if, you intend to print your work you should consider the paper stock, the inks, and the printing press, lithography, roto-gravure, or some other process. All of these factors WILL affect the finished product!

Good Luck

**khmer** · 11-11-2011, 07:53 PM

Surely one way to go about this is to build a reference library based on the art you like. So if you have a drawing of an Asian/Black/Caucasian person that the skin tone is working for you... then just snap a screenshot and sample the skin tone... look at your info palette to see what the CMYK/RGB values are and you're good. You can use other peoples in that book for the same reference for their skin tones.

Just a thought.

One thing you might remember is that people of a certain skin tone are rarely if ever uniformly that skin tone. Asian people on the whole tend to be a lot more uniform in their skin tone... whereas westerners and caucasians tend to get a reddish tinge around the nose and ears.

**Ace Corona** · 11-11-2011, 08:52 PM

Originally Posted by CyberLord

Ace Corona:
An excellent resource for this is "Digital Prepress for Comic Books" by Kevin Tinsley. Page 84 of my edition lists many suitable selections for people of color such as C20M50Y100, where "C" is cyan, "M" is magenta, and "Y" is yellow. Other selections are C10M40Y70, and C10M35Y40.
The problem is that if, and it's a large if, you intend to print your work you should consider the paper stock, the inks, and the printing press, lithography, roto-gravure, or some other process. All of these factors WILL affect the finished product!

Good Luck

CyberLord, it sounds like this book covers CMYK colors. Does it cover RGB? I'm more interested in displaying my comic on the web rather than worrying about the printed version. CMYK is for printed comics, and RGB is for comics on the web.

**khmer** · 11-12-2011, 01:52 AM

RGB for the web won't be nearly as critical as CMYK as there is no way you can control what color profiles people are using. Monitors will be all over the shop. So as long as you are happy with it on your monitor that's about the best it's going to get. This issue is the continual bane of photographers because no clients monitor is ever calibrated anything like your own so they get your images and ask why the color cast etc. .... because their monitors are set up differently and they will be running a different color profile.

At best you could suggest which color profile you want them to run when reading your comic online... but expecting anyone to do that is not very realistic.

**Ace Corona** · 11-12-2011, 02:57 PM

So if I was going to make a graphic novel, what color system do you recommend I use, CMYK or RGB?

**khmer** · 11-12-2011, 05:17 PM

It depends on what your distribution method is...

Printed material - as in you're having it printed on a 4/color offset printing press or a laserjet printer that has a Cyan/Magenta/Yellow/Black ink system.... then you'll wan't CMYK. You can flip back and forth between the two m odes in Photoshop and notice the massive difference in look.

For digital distribution eg. online publishing... go with RGB it's the method all monitors use to display the color spectrum.

1. RGB used to create images in screens and display while CMYK is used in printing to paper or other media
2. Both reproduces colors buy placing individual colors close to each other in order to fool the eye
3. RGB is an additive color model while CMYK is a subtractive color model
4. CMYK uses an additional color which is black rather than reproducing black by combining the three colors

Do your homework and save yourself a crapton of time and frustration.

**Ace Corona** · 11-12-2011, 05:36 PM

What if I mainly want to display it on the web, but I also want to print out paper versions?

**CyberLord** · 11-12-2011, 06:15 PM

Now, that's just me. Brian & Kristy Miller go the other way in their book "Hi-Fi Color For Comics".
Really it's all going to come down to what you feel more comfortable with.
Another reason I prefer CMYK is that I used to paint in oils. My pallet always contained Cadmium Red Medium, Cadmium Yellow Light, and Ultramarine Blue. With those colors I could pretty much make any color I wanted including Black. This is very similar to Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, and Black.
Read a lot on this subject. Look around at what is happening with contemporary art. Consider carefully what your objectives as an artist are. Then, and only then, do you make up your mind with the understanding that it can all change tomorrow.

Good Luck