Just a quick portrait I took of my wife while we were sharing a few drinks.
Canon 5D classic, 50mm 1.8, and a table lamp for light.
I am having a really tough time getting the skin tones to look right. Between the table lamp color and the red wall the color temperature is all odd. Thanks in advance for any tips or tricks to fix that or advice in general.
Other than color balancing for tungsten, I think the color is fine. A red wall should look red. If you had shot with tungsten white balance, I think it would be fine. I like the low light feel and the light fall off to her left side. I don't know if this is a candid or a posed shot. If posed, perhaps have her cross her legs the other way so her upper knee would not be toward the camera. (Or have her cross her ankles so the knees would both be lower.)
I can't take pictures like this of my wife. She always rolls her eyes when I try.
Given the lack of detail, the weird color balance and noise in the shadows, I would guess that it was really dark and this was the best could be done but was very under exposed like 3 to 4 stops under exposed. Please, do tell me if I am way off.
My experience in trying to recover photos like this is that the sliders won't let me push the white balance far enough to correct it. The trick I used to fix the colors in Lightroom is by using either the brush tool or the graduated filter on the whole image and push the white balance there as well. If you're having a hard time finding a point for white, use the white of the eyes.
I find that Camera Raw is really helpful in pictures like these. The Hue/ Saturation sliders can help a good deal . You have a lovely red wall so adjusting the yellows and oranges in her face should help. Photoshop can take care of the rest with the layer mask routine ,if you're familiar with it. Your image has so much potential , go for it.