Mom and Newborn - edit help and CC please

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.

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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?

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

Lynn

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

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.

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....

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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.

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

-bart

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.

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.

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...

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.

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!

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

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