Flying Babies

Took this shot of my favorite model yesterday for his 18 month birthday. What say you all?

IMAGE LINK: https://flic.kr/p/oBqe​z2

Love it - Lighten it up a bit and it's a winner. Happy Birthday cutie!

Diane

Super shot..I agree with Diane....open up that exposure and reveal the glee on his face (see below)

Great shot and timing.

Nice shot. Have you tried raising the shadows?

great shot,very nice timing,

Now that I see the highlighted shadow area Spike, I can see it works better for this shot. I did not open the shadows that much, but I will rework it and do it that way. Thanks for the CC everyone.

Spike44 wrote in post #17080488
Super shot..I agree with Diane....open up that exposure and reveal the glee on his face (see below)

To open up and make the kid lighter is certainly the way to go, but in this example we can see the classic noise, what happens when you slide the shadows out further and further. And is it a halo there?

I would suggest to use curves, but not till such drastic point and darken the sky, so the difference between the sky and a subject lessens.

Spike44 wrote in post #17080488
Super shot..I agree with Diane....open up that exposure and reveal the glee on his face (see below)

Holy crap what did you do to that photo??? Make it stop!

Love it!!!!

Numenorean wrote in post #17082531
Holy crap what did you do to that photo??? Make it stop!

Now here's a useless comment. I did exactly what I said in the post hoping to show the OP an alternative as suggested by Diane, p00kienrayray and my own preference. If it is too much for your taste, say it. Apparently the OP has learned from it.... whether he agrees to go this route or not.

Trust me, I appreciate the help in getting it right. When I do adjust the shadows, I will do a local adjustment on the exposed skin, I don't plan on just pulling shadows up everywhere.
I will also likely do as Osh suggested and darken the sky a little bit as well.
Since I am comfortable with layers and masking also with working with curves I will be trying different methods to get the desired results.
I absolutely appreciate the ideas and suggestions. Since there is more than one way to do most of the things suggested, I will be playing around with the image this weekend. I really love the way the shot turned out compositionally. I just needed a little help with the processing and I got that and will try them. I will also post the final result, on this thread, so others can see how it turned out based on their suggestions.
I value the input given and hope more than the family and I will be able to appreciate the end result.

I would suggest pulling up the shadows everywhere a tiny bit. His arms and legs seem so dark when compared to his face now, his right arm especially seems to be off to me.

I think I am going to replace the background altogether. I only darkened the background here a little bit and now it is losing all detail.

IMAGE LINK: https://flic.kr/p/oDnh​mQ

well, lets face it - although the catch might be good, lighting here was not up to par and thus this image should be thrown away. and basta.