Preferred skin reproduction of different skin groups

To accurately reproduce preferred skin colour is an important goal in digital image colour reproduction. A psychophysical experiment was conducted to specify the preferred skin colour for different skin types. Ten original facial images were captured to cover different skin types, including Caucasian, Chinese, South Asian, African, different genders and different ages. For each original image, 49 rendered images, uniformly sampled within the skin colour ellipsoid in CIELAB colour space, were used to morph the skin colours. Thirty observers from each of three ethnic backgrounds, Caucasian, Chinese and South Asian, participated in the experiment to investigate ethnic differences. Ellipsoid models were developed to specify preferred skin colour regions and centres for each original image. These results can be used to improve skin colour reproduction of colour imaging products, for example on mobile phones, for different skin types.