Does your acting headshot have a red tint? Does your skin look redder in the headshot than it does in everyday life? If so, that’s not good and you should address the issue. Your headshot not only should look as clear and vibrant as you do in everyday life, but even better! You definitely have a problem if people constantly tell you that your everyday look is better than your actor headshot.
Too many times, I’ve seen the lighting in a headshot be just a bit off – the best reason to work with a professional headshot photographer. If the lighting is not great, it may show too much redness in your skin, which is unappealing.
This redness issue sometimes leaves the actor looking like they have serious sunburn. In other cases it may look like they’re under mood lighting. Neither case is good for a professional headshot.
The lighting is not always the problem. There could be any number of reasons why the photo came out that way. So, since the photo has already been taken and you’re interested in improving it we’ll just focus on the solution rather than the cause.
As a rule of thumb for a headshot, you want to avoid anything in your headshot that will distract the viewers’ focus away from the story being told in your eyes and face.
So, it’s definitely a good idea to address any redness issues in an otherwise terrific actor headshot. Fortunately, today’s photo editing softwares are equipped to handle this issue. Many of them have specific tools for “red-skin fixes.” For example, Adobe Photoshop Lightroom has an “adjustment brush preset” that provides a quick fix. And you can find many free online video tutorials if you’re doing it yourself.
Another option is to have a photo lab (like Reproductions, Ray’s Photo lab, etc.) change the over-all tint of the photo or even do some spot corrections. Todays’ photo editing software allows you or the photo lab to do virtually anything you could want to do to your actor headshot . So, what are you waiting for? Don’t be red in the face any longer.
For more tips like these, check out “Hollywood Headshot Handbook” – it could help you avoid wasting hundreds of dollars on headshots that are not quite right … or even worse … downright unusable.