Mom and Newborn - edit help and CC please

[jtmorales]

I had the privelage of shooting my friends newborn baby girl recently and got a couple of good shots. This is one that I'm not real sure on which edit I like so I'd like some opinions on both the shot and which edit you prefer.

Anyway, 3 of the same pic, all edited different. Thanks.

http://me.photosbyjcm.com/albums/userpics/IMG_4187.jpg

http://me.photosbyjcm.com/albums/userpics/IMG_4187_vintage1_resize.jpg

http://me.photosbyjcm.com/albums/userpics/IMG_4187_vintage2_resize.jpg

[hckyguy14]

It looks like you caugh a very beautiful moment there. I really like the photo.

I also really like the last shot. To me it has a very calming look to it. Maybe even try it in B&W?

[ldibo]

I like the last edit. The second one almost doesn't look real. I love the babes expression! Priceless!

Lynn

[Grain]

First and the last for me. The cloth on the bottom right should and can be taken out in P/shop. Very emotional and touching shot...Lighting super soft and I love it

[jtmorales]

Thanks for the comments everyone.

hckyguy14 - I haven't tried it in B&W yet but I will, I may also try more of a sepia.

ldibo - The second shot seemed a bit off to me, but I couldn't place why. Perhaps it's the color.

Grain - I was going to remove the blanket, but wasn't real sure whether to replace it with just a black color or not.

[Kristy]

I really like the image.. I think it would look beautiful in B&W with a soft warm tone, but not quite sepia.., Here's my edit for you.. I also bumped up the levels to open up the shadows a bit more and added some extra contrast, oh ... and burned out the pink blanket...

I can remove it if you like, just let me know....

[TheSteveMadden]

I prefer the b/w, as it looks like you either had a mixture of light sources leading to difficult skin color correction or the bably is a little jaundiced (both of our's were for weeks)

Beautiful, touching image, though! I like it.

[bartoj11]

I actually like the de-sat in #2. Great pic either way. I love how objective photography is.

-bart

[NewbieXT]

I like the last one and kristy's edit. BW for this one. Mom's skin is very pink and baby looks a bit jaundice. so I think BW works best. too bad the blanket is in the shot though, kinda distracting.

[jtmorales]

Thanks everyone for the comments. It appears that the general consesus is that this would be best in B&W. I'll have to play with it a bit more.

Kristy, nice edit, I really like it. Did you paint over the pink blanket or just burn it? How did you do the B&W conversion? I'm always looking for good ways to do a B&W.

[hlcowan]

Beautiful picture!!! Can I ask how you did the lighting? From your signature, it looks like we have most of the same equipment. Lighting is one of my weakest points though...

[jtmorales]

I have 2 Patterson Interfit strobes. I think for this one I used a single light to the left of the camera shot through a white umbrella. Lighting is still something I'm learning, so I usually just experiment. These were actually shot with a Sigma 18-50 F2.8 EX as I just sold my 28-70 and am trying to decide if the 18-50 will work for me or not.

[anglext]

Ok you asked for some edit help so I did one of my own for a few suggestions for you.

What I did:

~Opened Image in Photoshop.
~Recropped to give more room on the left side near arm. If they wanted this framed it would have cut her arm off. Big no no.
~Converted to B&W via Channels Palette.
~Applied a Chocolate Syrup photoshop action from Kubota, ck them out they are awesome, which looks like sepia but with more brown instead of orange.
~Started Cloning (this took the longest).
~~Cloned blanket out of corner-(kristy's was a lil rough on the hand).
~~Cloned out the babies diaper to soften it up a little.
~~Added babies skin inbetween mothers thumb and palm to give a little more detail and also while removing diaper. (could be done better w/ original file)
~~Cloned out the ring and bracelet on the mom to give it a more timeless look.

Enjoy!

[shuttermom]

Great job angle- my fav so far. Beautiful capture!

[jtmorales]

angle, nice edit. I'll have to try your technique and see if I can duplicate your efforts.

[NewbieXT]

don't know if you have tried this, but my favorite bw conversion method is as follows.
Image>Mode>Lab Color.
(In Channels Panel) Delete the "b" channel, then delete the "Alpha 2" Channel.
Image>Mode>Grayscale
Image>Mode>RGB Color (so you can finish editing in RGB).
I think the contrast is comparable to Film BW. and it is so easy to do.
Here is how your first pic looks with this conversion.

[jtmorales]

newbie, I'll have to give that a shot. I'm still trying to find a good B&W conversion method, maybe this one will work for me. Thanks.