The bright colors in children portraits

[balancingact]

In looking at the amazing pictures that I see on baby/children photographer websites, I'm wondering if the colors are naturally vivid or if they have been edited. For some reason- I can't seem to get colors that vivid when I'm taking pictures. What am I doing wrong? Also, as a newbie (who is totally overwhelmed)- what are recommendations for learning a photoediting software. Where do I begin?

TIA

[mackb]

What program are you using? Are you shooting RAW or JPEG? If you’re shooting JPEG then your camera will "edit" to your taste after you adjust some settings. If you shoot RAW you’ll have more control. I'm not an expert, but for "vivid" colors I think it's important to capture the colors accurate 1st, that means your exposure should be darn near perfect right out of the camera. If you make too many edits in a program later you'll compromise the accuracy of the colors, then "vivid" will look funny. Most great portraits I've seen have vivid eyes too; this will require some practice on fill flash of bounce/reflector.

[snyderman]

mackb makes a lot of sense. My very best shots are ones that were: a) in perfect focus; b) lighting and exposure were spot on; c) already had some color to begin with.

Also, the shooting RAW files will give you the best oppty to manipulate the photo after the fact to get deep, rich, vibrant color to your shots.

dave

[dynamitetony]

my guess is that the photos that you are looking at have all had some post processing done

something like lightroom or similar is an easy way to bring your photos to life

[gonzogolf]

Agree with all the above about shooting raw. Other keys to getting that pop in colors. In post processing do a levels adjustment, maintain precise control over your white balance, make sure your exposure is dead on. And lastly look at getting good lenses, the difference in color, contrast, and sharpness between the low end lenses and L lenses is amazing.

[picturecrazy]

This is very common in children portraits... for some reason. I'm not a big fan of it but if you want to do it, then follow what they say above, and then typically what you can do is apply a very aggressive curve, and then boost the saturation slider a bit (if you are in raw) to get vivid colours. Then what most do is they grossly overexpose the skin tones so they're really bright. When you grossly overexpose, you start losing colour data so this takes care any oversaturation in the skin tones that you might have due to aggressive saturation, levels or curves adjustments. In general, eyes are usually darker than skin tones so this also really brings out the eyes and makes the whites in the eyes very bright, which can also get rid of visible veins or any red/pink.