green filters and darker skin tones?

[grapejohnson]

I'm going to do a few portraits of a (quite beautiful) African-American friend of mine today, and I remembered I had a green filter for my Jupiter 9. I plan on shooting HP5. Would a green filter compliment darker skin tones, or should I stick to yellow (which has given me good results before) ? She is pretty dark skinned.

Any advice would be appreciated. I could experiment on her, but I'd rather not get any bad shots in the process.

 

[Roger Hicks]

Yellow and a tad more exposure is my guess. Green lightens green (doubt there's much green in her skin tone) and darkens magenta (probably more magenta than green in the skin tone). Yellow darkens blue (again, probably very little) and lightens yellow (often an important component of brown).

Cheers,

R.

 

[sevo]

Green will do pretty much nothing to skin except enhancing the visibility of blemishes and blood vessels - which is rarely desirable. Yellow or orange are a better bet, red might be a bit over the top. YMMV, there is much variety to human skin tones, and every skin tone, even the darkest or lightest, can come combined with thick or thin skin (and corresponding visibility of blood vessels), which may have more impact on filtration than the base colour.

 

[I.G.I.]

Orange, and especially Red, affect (lighten) browns, pinks and magenta. Skin tones - even on Caucasians - become noticeably lighter though overall contrast may get too harsh depending on clothes' and background's colour palette.

 

[grapejohnson]

Thanks everyone! I really appreciate the hints - looks like I'm sticking with yellow.

 

[Dirk]

Interesting assignment. Please post the results. Thanks!