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yes - you have full control over the color of a skin material using ->
Base Color -> i just colored gen3 (nothing else changed to above) with a dark grey ...(gen 3 texture map plus RGB...
SSS Transmitted Color a braun grey...exampel 1
Translucency weight back to 0.3.. (black skin type)...
some minor color correction in base and sss transmitted color -> example 2
All other parameters are NOT changed.
Darker skin types (Afrika and Asia) you can easy get out of any Daz texture.... here it doesnt matter a lot if they have to much red or saturation..
).
Pale skin types (caucasian and asia) -> here you ether live with a ligth tanned skin (most caucasian DAZ standard textures) - or then you must edit the textures in photoshop. (devibrance, desaturate, albedo or whatever you like to try
The only thing about surface anisotropy I could find skimming through every article I collected the last few month is a graph in The Appearance of Human Skin on page 20 (23 of the pdf). Which unfortunately isn't very convincing since it misses a distinct scale the data is given in to convert them into linear space values.
A value of 5.0 (or 10 times the postconversion amount) I find a bit too strong for most bump maps. For viewed from afar it's okay, but if you want to do a closeup, your charakter shows some very unendearing pimples on his/her skin and you'll have to go through the adjustment hassle all again. As a rule of thumb I seldom use a bump strength of more than 4 to 5 times the amount it shows after the conversion to Iray Uber.
In that case, using a dark skintone color there, you could also use a ,through it's RGB color channels, darkened diffuse texture, like it's been atomatically made when doing the conversion from 3Delight to Iray Uber.
I have a bit of a problem with this statement, since the glossy specular color is dependent on the Refraction Index/IOR value used actually. If we can come to the agreement that the color specularity for human skin with a refraction index of 1.41 is always 51 51 51 we're good.
F.e., I'm using a 1.42 in that place, and my specular color is therefore 52 52 52. I also tend to use a linear value there (0.0301209) which is more precise, because putting in 52 52 52 into Studio's color selection tool you'll get 0.0302565 for that.
Here's what I've been using for skin settings. :)
I made her eyes emissive for another post, but I thinnk I'll leave them like that.I like the effect.
What do you think? am I doing it right
I have been trying to follow this but find I am getting confused.. Why would skin have a directional specularity? And how can the specularity color always be a set color when part of that would be driven by the strength maps that are pulled from variable human skin? And why is not more of the skin highlighting being driven by a fresnel top coat?
Arnold rC. How much is the IOR of a powdered photomodels face with makeup after she walked 5 times the catwalk?
yes your right -> a refraction index of 1.41 is always 51 51 51 we're good..... my example is a simplified base skinmodel for starters which works and looks nice... i can come way more easy to realism working on microdetails (missing skin details), pose her in nice light, and add accesoirs and clothes which cheat a watchers eye - then fiddling between 1.41 and 1.49 - specially as long as the microdetails and sebum maps are simple not there.
The same for the bump and glossy amount... trust your eyes not values! that's why i posted the NOSE flashlight images... i use bump 5 and 2 for the torso because it looks as good as possible to me for this bump map (which is to strong on the nose, but not the rest of the face... example 1 and extrem closeup example2. (actually there are milliards of noses with more "bump" out there in the real world :-) it just does not look that way (filled large pores, nose, flat!).
Anyway i am in the same boat as you are - i want make it better and more real (also physicaly correct) - that's why i actually fiddle and tweak with glossy backscattering which nobody seems to use in their skin advice yet. WHY? skin has backscattering - A LOT in the face.
@icecrmn skin looking good to me.... .. that's a good one (zoomed in to nose area).
I think the problem is backscattering can go wildly wrong, easily. I experimented with backscattering-based hair and it was really hard to get consistent results.
Khory glossy highligths are way more affected from the bump map then other things - that's what i tried to show above... it is close to impossible to get values which working in every light situation and also for closeups - i could easy adjust all my examples above for different light situations to make them look better for each one of them - always other things. little bit more glossy, liitle bit more red, lesser. more translucency.. for a close up a sharper highlight on the nose...
.
.. but well it is a trial and error yet. more failing then success 
everybody of us could take one of the great looking renders from Mec4d or Alex and just pose and lit it bad and have lost 50% of realism.
i posted above a one material setup (using only base) ..... because i saw that the technical talk and posted value screenshoots - confuse a lot of first timers... specially screenshots which show shader values which are actually not in use (no weight).... instead i pointed on the really important parameter values in BASE....and your own eyes bringing those in balance (glossy, bump)
From there we go to top coat and layered models (fresnel, thin film and so on). each to his liking... i try to use top coat for peach fuzz right now because i also think this affects glossy and specular way more - then every difference betwen 1.41 and 1.45 :-).. the same for glossy backscattering! it is even in the name GLOSSY backscattering and has a own tint (specular?)
@Arnold C.
Translucency color 255, 0, 0 comes from other PBR renderengines - they use more layers and colors for subdermis and even more layers all with a tint or texture! .. this colors add UP....we have one layer.
then they use maybe 255.0.0 but with only a weight of 0.25 on a caucasian skin AND a map. (marmorset example).
I think DAZ's way using the texture in transclucency and add color with RGB is actually not that bad (a compromise) - just also to much red! ... and also how translucency actually looks on a human ear. Photos.. brought me to my unusally ...Translucency Color RGB: 183, 135, 100..
It also reduces the reddish head problems and looks good on all types of skins (examples above).
When i look on a light penetration chart in human skin/tissues....
it shows about 3/2/1.... red, green, blue... our ear is, well.... how dick? ... it can NOT be just red which shines trough a ear.... direct lights penetrates 3mm human skin... my fingers are about 10mm thick translucent against a poor 20 watt light...
here is such a chart,,, i think my colors are way better then red, 0 0 .
not because of physical acuracy - i use only thin issues in my observation, ears, nostrils... where based on that strong sunlight penetrates up to 20mm and even thin bones (fingers)... on a ear with 5 - 8mm also G + B shines trought... while low backlight.. well then only red is to see..... but we have just one color in iray.
The autoconversion often ends up with the trans color being regular diffuse map + pink.
And while that isn't at all accurate, it provides an approximation that looks pretty good in many cases.
@timmins.william yes - backscattering is really difficult to control - i have some results but can only weight it in very very low, ... shared glossy off tint color i use a yellow white "shine" - just saying.
the pink is just a little bit to much - but Arnold is right.. the mix with texture plus pink comes close to my colors.... i saw more then one chart allready which showed me that even blue travels trough a ear against sunlight. ..... one i added above in my last posting....
if we talk about physicaly correct translucency in human tissues.... i think this chart is better then a 255.0.0 which comes from where? from other skin shaders which are maybe also not correct.
it is also strange that we must tell a physically correct renderengine - a translucency color .. without the possibility to define the penetration deep of R,G;B . that's not PBR - thats fake :-).. So i take the ear as my goal becaus that^s what we really see first of the translucency effect.. and there all waves RGB travel trough in sunny daylight!
@Arnold C.
the added photo shows how i want my ears in iray :-).... 3R,2G,1B.
@ ArnoldC - Well, I've tried your suggested adjustments (added the translucency mask, changed the SSS parameters, eliminated the thin film, set the top coat IOR to 1.55) - and she's even more glowing red than she was before. The translucency is completely overwhelming everything else right now. I'm not sure what to do about it. Are we sure we want translucency base color effect set to scatter and transmit, and, if so, is my SSS reflectance tint reasonable? I didn't change the lighting yet as I'd rather spend my time trying to figure out this translucency thing as it's really dominating the result. I'll worry about nicer lighting after that's under control.
@Gr00vus
SSS reflectance tint .. remove
SSS amount to 0.30
Hi Andy,
When you set the translucency base color effect to "scatter and transmit", you get the SSS reflectance tint forced on you automatically. That's one of the reasons I asked whether we really want scatter and transmit for the translucency color effect. The other reason is because using scatter and transmit seems to be making the transucency color dominate and I can't find some other setting to compensate. I suppose I could set the SSS reflectance tint to all white and thus render it ineffectual, but in prior reading it seemed like you need a proper setting on that to get the right tone for your target skin type via controlling mainly the red value of the translucency (less red in the tint for lighter tones, more red for darker tones).
I will put my SSS amount back down to 0.30 and scattering distance back up to 0.50 as this current setting doesn't seem so good to me. I was trying a different setting here that ArnoldC had posted previously.
try first this...
with remove - i meant set it back to default values... you take away most colors from your base color texture with your SSS reflectance tint values right now..... set to: 1, 1, 1 and it does not have a effect.
then you can see arnolds settings - if you still have to much transmitted color from SSS then you reduce to my 0.30.
And post your resulting render - after so many red heads i like to see a good one
'What do you mean? An african or european photomodel?'
I just wanted to make clear for our not so experienced readers that they shouldn't just set their Glossy Specular to 51, 51, 51, and their Refraction Index/IOR free to anything else. Just to save you from being blamed by torch and pitchfork parties like "AndyGrimm has said skin specularity is always 51, 51, 51. Get him!" 
when they're might be told that their specularity doesn't match their refraction index.
In case of bump maps I in fact use mainly eye judgement as letting myself being guided by values to set their strength. Especially most of the "older" bump maps for Gen4 and Genesis/Genesis 2 f.e. look more then a bit horrible when set to about ten times the amount they set at when conversed. As for glossiness/glossy roughness values, right, that's not an absolute amount, just a good average starting point to begin with.
Nice, most of the time I argued I'm sitting in a kayak.
But I'm not so sure about the 'backscattering' thing, since there is nothing at the skin surface that could "backscatter", though scattering, yes. From my pov the effect you're looking for would more be in the realms of "Fresnel phenomenon", Brewster's angle or Total internal reflection (at between stratum corneum and sebum layer) maybe. There aren't many, if any, scatterers residing in sebum, and the scatterers within the stratum corneum scatter strongly forward, not backwards.
Far as I know "backscatter" is surface level only, i;e; velvet etc.
What make things more complex, but makes render faster (so I understand this choice), is the separation of the whole "scattering" phenomenon in 3 parts. Translucency, which is the part of scattering rays which will not have been totally absorbed through their propagation inside the material till the exiting interface, opposite from incoming one. SSS, which is the part of the scattering rays which will out on the same interface as the incoming one, but after propagation - and absorption - in the material volume too. And there is the third one, which is the backscattering, which does not seem to be a diffuse backscattering, but a glossy backscattering. Personally I chose not to use it so far for several reasons : not enough documentation about this, and the lack of documentation which does not make things clear enough to know if it can be used to simulate the part of the SSS going in the backscattering direction or not, it colorises too much the skin even if I map its color.. Well for now, I felt more drawbacks in it than advantages. I may change my mind with a better documentation, or more experiment, but so far, my personal impression is my results are better without this backscattering activated.
@Arnold C.
'What do you mean? An african or european photomodel?' it's actually nice to meet somebody which understand my kind of humor. Yes -- you catched me
.
Bump Map: Gen3 Base uses just the Photo Texture also for Bump - there is a lot of baked light and moles and so on... on her closed eyes is a bright reflection from a window)... even in the bump map.... it's really a bad example ... i like to see the bump on the eyes, upper cheeks and neck .. when the camera is about 1m-2.5m away (85mm).... close up portrait range... but well... zooming in on the nose in high resulation ends then terrible with a bad map. which is the case with gen3 base.
@Szark that's what i try to figure out... skin looks like silky because of peach fuzz and backscattering.. is what i "believe" right now
...
Without this effect i am looking for - we are far away from photo realism... and that's what i aim for.. close ups looking always to HARD (skin edges).. trying to improve here - i do not necessarly use physical correct values to come closer to this effect - trusting my eyes here.
@V3Digitimes exactly - that's how i understand it too..... the effect is always to strong on some parts in other lights - i can set it up for one light situation (example in this thread).. but i can be sure somehwere else it is way to much or looks even like artefacts. But even the brigther artefacts appear on the correct place.. maybe with peachfuzz (which gives then the silky shine on those places) it does work.
Yep, I know, I guess MEC4D got her translucency color recommendation straight from the MarmoSet Toolbag 1 skin shader tutorial.
Just to make clear for everyone, the advice I gave on the "devibranced diffuse texture" matter is how MEC4D explained it using her method to set up a skin shader. That method I dropped months ago for it requires any damn different texture to be modified for any damn different character. Too much effort.
I have a render back from the days when I used MEC4D's method, "Victoria at PixarCampu9E" below. And a newer one, "Magic_Falls_Oktober_2015", using a method mostly similar to what Andy has described here, a skin diffuse texture in the translucency slot with RGB 240, 240, 240 and some measured values put into. A mid Beta state, if you want. Mostly satisfied with the reflections on her body, but not so with the reflections on her face, without a good gloss map it's really hard to define stronger reflection highlights on forehead, nose, chin and cheeks without giving the whole face a uniform reflection strength.
"Dom" and "dick", you're by any chance a "middle-european", maybe even a "Landsmann"? I'd say, cartilaginous tissue and skin included, around 3 - 4 mm dick.
You can't put your ears in Iray, Andy...
Welcome to the "Skin Shading Disscussion and Confusion Assembly", Virginie.
That's the reason I tend to don't use backscattering either.
good point but I have found a lot of Backscatter weight will kill the glossiness so small amounts go a long way
Just to confuse the issue further, I actually had good results with _transparency_.
That is, skin refraction IOR 1.41, refraction weight .12 (I think that's the value I used). It looks really nice, though I think fine detail tends to get lost, and it takes much longer to render. But experiment with it!
"dick" ,heck, you catched me again
... terrible grammar mistake, lol... that happens when i write my answers to fast in english... native german speaking swiss guy here,
Looking on your second render - ignoring all the things which makes here clearly a cgi render (hairs, contrast to background, clothes) and not a real photo... the skin looks not bad to me.. maybe just with bloom and and some blur it would look great allready.
"You can't put your ears in Iray, Andy.." lol - i bet i could!
@timmins.william ... yes i tought about that too.... it's a complete other model... can you upload a render ?
Well, then Grüezi! Native speaking german guy on this end, some hundreds of kilometers to the north-east.
Thanks. I'll might add bloom and blur when I got a bit more familiar with it's settings. But my main problem still is to get reflection on the face similar to this, strong highlights on forehead, chin, nosetip and cheeks, but more matte elsewhere:
Don't try a Rembrandt here; he was a Dutchman... and it really didn't help him either.
Exact, this is very easy to reach the skin effect you want for a given texture set and light conditions. The struggle begins if you want to have a global shader fine with all texture sets, in all lighting conditions. There you have to make compromises, and sometimes pargmatism wins over pure physics.
Well I won't speak much in this forum, because I know me, and I fear I could not help myself spending a lot of time explaining or discuss physics... Which would bother everybody and make me loose a lot of time on my projects. Well.. Let's say I just came to say hello..;)
Their shape and intensity come from : "geometry + lights + gloss (incl top coat)". Essentially (yes, plus frame, of course, so camera). You can act on all of that first. For the highlight variation (+/-), you can act on glossy roughness map, or color, or weight. This would be the beginning, but maybe placing the right lights the right way might be enough, which is what has to be made first.
Working from photo reference is an excellent initiative. I do this regurarly, it is an excellent way to learn both skin and lights in the same time.
@arnold.. also note that while it is great photo - made by a professional .... she wears makeup and one of the reasons of make up is to get the glossy highlights right = softer (specially under photolights!)...... this is not just skin anymore
... she has powdered cheecks... there would be way sharper highlights on normal skin.
But it is a good light study - i will try to copy it tonight with my standard skin settings from above.....