S95, indoors with the flash , the faces come out red, clothing OK. How do I correct this?

[Skirball]

Is the clothing accurate, or just ok?  You're white balance could be off, which would be more noticable on a face than clothing, but your camera should know if it fires the flash to set the appropriate WB.  Are you shooting in RAW?

Alternately, you should check out your color profiles.  If the saturation, or even the red channel itself, is boosted too much it could create red faces.  And again, you're going to notice this much more in faces, which we assume to be certain colors, than clothing which can be any color.  I'd stay away from those "vivid color" settings when shooting people.  In fact I usually use a neutral color profile as I find Canons to be a bit heavy handed on the red channel.

[Richask6]

Hi Skirball,  

   Thanks for the quick response to my dilemma.

   I just joined the forum because I was so disappointed with all of the flash pictures.  I have a S70 (about 2004, when it first came out, still have it)  great pictures and color, but the screen was 2" and always took 2 or 3 snaps to make sure the eyes weren't shut..  I always had a Canon, the film Sure Shot, the AE-1, very satisfied..  I finally treated myself to the 3" screen S95, and so I'm here on the forum, haha.  I re-read the manual (on-line in PDF), and changed the color setting.  It was on OFF, and I set it to FILM COLOR ?, but no subject to take since it's after midnight.  

    Will see my grandkids this week-end, and under the similar situation, will try again.

    Not shooting in RAW, just went ahead straight from the box and charger  Didn't double check the clothing color that closely.   Will try the WB next.   Thanks again for your response, greatly appreciated.  Maybe the camera setting straight from the box wasn't at 100% because I did tone down the screen brightness, was way in the ++range.

   Thanks again.

[Skirball]

Keep at it, new cameras frequently take some adjustment and experience to get them to work how we want.  There's a tendency to get a new camera and expect it to instantly outperform the camera you've been using for years.  Unfortunately, sometimes the quickest way to learn these lessons is through getting photos you're disappointed with and motivating you to correct them.

I have an S90 and I love it.  Sometimes it makes me wonder why I spent all this money on SLRs and lenses.  I haven't used a S95, but I've heard it's even better.  Now that said, I don't even use the on-camera flash on my SLRs, let alone a point and shoot.  Maybe fill flash if I have to, but in general I try to avoid.  That doesn't mean the faces should come out red... usually they're white and look like deers in headlights.

I'm not sure what Film Color is, but I'd stay away from that until you get this problem figured out.  I'm surprised that you were on Off, I'm not even sure what that means, as there should be some color profile.  See if there's a neutral, and select that until you get this figured out.  After that you can play around.  Also, go into your white balance and turn it off auto (AWB), and select flash.  Now find a victim, err, I mean, subject, and test it out.  Any better?

[Richask6 · Accepted solution]

Hi Skirball,

    I've had a lot of cameras over the years, so this S95 threw me.   I checked the WB, and that was OK on AWB.  But there were 10-plus options for the color. haha, unbelievable.  sepia, BW, neutral, vivid, custom R, G, B, darker skin, lighter skin, off, and finally positive film color.   If the prints came out like my AE-1, I would be really happy, so I had it set on Positive film color.  The difference was immediate.  I tried neutral, and it was a toss-up, so I'm going to experiment a lot between these 2 settings.  At 13 cents a print at Costco, I can afford to do this, not like the old days when processing was pretty expensive, so you had to be careful in shooting.

   I'm glad I got on the Canon forum and had the good fortune in having you respond.   Thanks again.