Would you scrap this due to the hot spot?

This is my own little guy... and therefore I love the shot. Trying to decide if this was for a client, if I would scrap it because of the hot spot... or if something like this can be insignificant enough to make it a keeper.

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Tighter crop. It looks cute.

I agree tighter crop might take care of both (hot spot and hand).

Remember beauty is in the eye of the beholder.... if you like the shot keep it for sure.

A tighter crop and tried to warm the picture up a little....

PP was quick... hope you don't mind the try.

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I agree....tighter crop. He is adorable.

You could just fix it... it's in a pretty good place to do that. Those eyes are too awesome to get rid of the shot completely!

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gosh, andrea Youve done it again!

I agree with the others, crop and warmer. Beautiful child regardless. I think going tighter on the eyes, and maybe a slight color enhancement on the eyes, and you've got a winner.

I think it depends on what the picture is supposed to convey, though. The original shot gives me the impression that he's being carried, and is looking back over the person's shoulder. In a tighter crop, you can give the impression of the child looking up at someone, which gives a whole different context to the photo. I think the biggest attraction to the picture is the eyes, and this kid has got a stare on him that needs to be accentuated. An untrained eye, not that mine is trained, will be almost immediately drawn to the eyes. It'll take a minute for someone to roam the picture and find the hotspot. Given the right color, most people won't even care about that. The hand, actually the arm and hand, aren't a big deal, but they take away from the purity of the stare. You look at the arm, and it's just a baby in the picture. But, if you have only the eyes to look at, it's more than just a baby, it's the emotion from the eyes that carries the picture.

Anyone who looks at a picture like that will get an emotional reaction, and while each one will be different, I bet they all say the same thing; "Beautiful eyes, cute kid".

Hopefully you won't mind my take on it. I think going tighter on the eyes is the way to go, but that's just me. I would expect that if it were for a client, you would have to figure out what they wanted out of the pic. You never know, they might like it perfectly the way it was shot. I'm not a big fan of too much processing, but I ran the pic through Noiseware to soften it without losing detail. Unfortunately that wasn't the case on the hair. But, the attraction to the eyes is enhanced.

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I got to go with not cropping and just fixing the hot spot I like the looks of that better but it is just my opinion. Had a bit of a play on my uncalibrated laptop while I am sitting here watching TV so if the color is really off I apologize.

My first thought was to crop it but I like the hot spot fix also.
Can Andrea or someone else explain how you fix a hot spot like that?
He's a cutie!

Thanks all! I love seeing all the different edits. I am curious... some of them look like some sharpening was done just on the eyes - is that right? I can't decide which I like best - and I'm on a laptop with a pretty poor screen right now, so it's hard to say. I'll have to check back tomorrow.

He's actually standing and leaning on the bench part of a picnic table.

My problem with the pic isn't just the hotspot, it's the upper left area of his head. It look larger than it should. A crop would take care of both the hotspot and the head. I didn't sharpen the eyes, but I did brighten them a tiny bit. They're too sweet to pass up. Here's one more, hope you don't mind...

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I am a scrapper myself and this is what I would do with this adorable photo!

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I've been meaning to come back to this!

Those who didn't crop and fixed the hot spot - how did you do it? I've been trying and my efforts thus far have been unsuccessful.

Sorry. I missed the question the first time. The way I handle this kind of thing is to use a quick mask to copy a good piece to another layer. The steps are something like this:

* Press Q to enter quick mask mode
* Paint on the area you want to select with a soft black brush (in this case, you'd paint the good part of hair you want to duplicate to cover the hot spot)
--> you'll see what you're painting highlighted in soft edged red
* Press Q again to leave quick mask mode and you'll see the selection
(If you don't use quick mask and haven't changed the options, then you will probably need to invert the selection (Shift-Ctrl-i) to get the correct part selected)
* With the good portion of hair selected, use Ctrl-J to move that to a new layer.

From there, you can play with any transforming you need to resize, reposition, and mask off any parts that shouldn't have been duplicated. The edge will be nice and soft because you used a soft brush during the selection. You can copy pieces from different parts if you need to fill in spots, too. You just need to play around with it.