Help with Newborns Photos!!

[Cristina M.]

Hi Everyone,

I was wondering if anyone can please help me with editing these photos. I want to use them for my daughter's announcement.

Is there a way to smooth and clean her skin and brighten the photos so they are not as dark without noise?

They are located at:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/79776552@N07/

Any help would be wonderful!

Thank you so much,
Cristina M.

[JakAHearts]

Sure! You have elements 9 is looks like so use the spot healing brush to clean up the baby pimples. (Its the one that looks like a bandaid). Then, use levels (Ctrl+L) to brighten it up a bit. You shot at some crazyish settings though. On your body, iso 1600 is probably pretty noisey to start. You also shot them at 1/500th of a second. Did you manually select the ISO to force the F11 and 1/1500th of a second? At those settings, there had to be plenty of light available to use. Next time, shoot in aperture priority and use exposure compensation or even manual. Youll be much happier with your results.

[sf1]

It is much easier for me to use a RAW file to get the colouring right. Here is a 1 minute edit - can be done with almost any software:



You can also change the background using digital backgrounds and the options are limitless - about 1.5 minutes:

[JakAHearts]

Oh, I want to play to! I had forgotten about this thread.


95bwsm by shanereighard, on Flickr

[Cristina M.]

I did take them in RAW if that is helpful. How do I upload those??

Thank you!! for taking the time to edit these. Thanks also for the tips on my settings. I haven't started shooting on Manual yet and I was trying to take them quickly while my other three were playing around us. So I probably just left the settings as I had them before. Always in a rush

Cristina M.

[sf1]

I still don't shoot much in manual, except when using flash. As for settings, use AV mode, set your ISO and your aperture and shoot away. I usually dial in exposure com....thats just the way I feel comfortable and fast.

Here is a third attempt using portraiture plug in....about 2 minutes total:

[Milutiche]

I've been playing around with newborn photos today and I applied a Lightroom Preset that to your photo that worked well on my daughter plus I used the heal brush on a coupl of the pimples. I would love to know what you think of the result