First smile

[Mitchell]

My daughter's first smile. 8 weeks old today!!:lust

[DRebelGirl]

She is adorable. Nice photo!

[Yuri Pautov]

Nice to meet her!
Beautiful model:):
Spasibo

[rutt]

This is a photo you are likely to treasure for a long time, an eventually you'll be able to abash her with it. Since it is likely to be around so long, I think it's worth a little work in post. I see three things you can improve easily:

It's too dark. Use the color sampler tool and measure the values on the face.
It's too grey. The baby would look healthier with more saturated colors.
Skin texture is unattractive, looks wet. This is the result of lighting. Maybe a flash?
We can address 1&2 easily with LAB curves. Pull the light side of the L curve downward and steepen it through the midtones to bring out detail in the face and lighten the entire image. Steepen the A+B curves symetrically to increase saturation and get the grey out of the face.

Addressing 3 allows me to show off something that NeatImage can do. I just applied it after the LAB curve move and bingo. Better skin. Much cheaper than a pro lighting setup.

Lastly I converted to CMYK and sharpened on the C+K channels. This is often a great thing to do with portraits. It hits eyes, hair but has no effect on skin.

Here is the result:

http://rutt.smugmug.com/photos/17780510-O.jpg

[Mitchell]

This is a photo you are likely to treasure for a long time, an eventually you'll be able to abash her with it. Since it is likely to be around so long, I think it's worth a little work in post. I see three things you can improve easily:

It's too dark. Use the color sampler tool and measure the values on the face.
It's too grey. The baby would look healthier with more saturated colors.
Skin texture is unattractive, looks wet. This is the result of lighting. Maybe a flash?
We can address 1&2 easily with LAB curves. Pull the light side of the L curve downward and steepen it through the midtones to bring out detail in the face and lighten the entire image. Steepen the A+B curves symetrically to increase saturation and get the grey out of the face.

Addressing 3 allows me to show off something that NeatImage can do. I just applied it after the LAB curve move and bingo. Better skin. Much cheaper than a pro lighting setup.

Lastly I converted to CMYK and sharpened on the C+K channels. This is often a great thing to do with portraits. It hits eyes, hair but has no effect on skin.

Here is the result:


Nice work!!

I used to shoot portraits of my older children with a 2+ soft focus filter to smooth out all of that baby skin. I need to be more aggressive with my post production work with my digital shots now. Part of the problem is that I get so enamored of all of the detail in these shots that when they are gone after softening I seem to miss them!

I like the way you maintained the sharpness of her eyes while softening the skin.

thanks!

mitch

[Mitchell]

Played around a little with it also. Any thoughts?

[KimballPhotography]

:lust AWWWWWWWWWWWWW:lust She so totally makes me miss the baby moments...My youngest is now 2 1/2:cry . What beauty you have there and look at that smile:D . I like what you did in the last post...brighter is better. She looks like a little glow worm:lust .

[4labs]

Beautiful baby. I think your last version is the best it is much more natural looking IMO. Thnxs for sharing.

[Angelo]

She's a beauty Mitch. Congrats!