baby portrait

[Leon]

was asked to do some portraits for a friends daughter and granddaughter today

 

come on then be honest..... yes I did edit it

 

 

should i remove the scratch on her hand or is that "life" ?

[Guest Ron]

She looks too dark Leon which is not helped by the colour and the brightness of the head band unless you intended it that way.

 

Ron 

[Guest]

I would like to see the colour one Leon as I think the colour pop just does not work and the image is all about the headband and not the child.

[colinb]

SHEs GREY !!! ! is she unwell?

 

I agree 100% with Oly, great if you're selling headbands otherwise forget it.

[FUJI]

Colin, an honest Crit, but unduly Harsh, in this instance.

Hi, Leon,

You have taken a good photograph of a very beautiful baby, any parent would be proud of.....but......sadly your colouring of the headband has taken the emphasis off that beautiful little face, the all important subject.

You seem to have hit the right mark as far as the jacket and pillow are concerned, but the baby needs to be much lighter, with no colouring of the headband if a mono study.

If I were you, I would return to the original RAW or JPEG file to work on two more versions, one in colour and the other in mono, this will do three things.

1: Give you the opportunity for targeted practice of your post processing skills and learning.

2: Give you the chance to produce for real, a cracking final version that any photographer or parent would be proud of.

3: To take the time, to absorb what you have learned by this, then go forwards in the knowledge that you have achieved what you first set out to do.

I am sure, that the parents are pleased with what you have done, but see if you can have another go, using no other light than that from a window, not harsh sunlight but diffused in some way.

Try a YouTube search on Baby Photography........Learn from what you see.

Onwards and Upwards mate.

FUJI

[Guest]

Leon perhaps high key with a slight white vignette may do the job...just a suggestion on the mono image.

[FUJI]

Much better.....a great edit Oly.......just the kind of effect I envisaged.

FUJI

[ChrisLumix]

Well done for venturing into the world of editing Leon. Kudos to you.

 

I think I agree about the selective colour on this one (though I'm sure it was valuable learning in the process of selection, saturation, etc). However, most pictures of babies benefit from being in colour, and you've taken a nice portrait there. How about showing us the original?

[colinb]

Leon perhaps high key with a slight white vignette may do the job...just a suggestion on the mono image.

 

So much better, almost a completely different photo.

[Leon]

Leon perhaps high key with a slight white vignette may do the job...just a suggestion on the mono image.

how do you vignette using CS2?

 

like the edit

[Leon]

here's the orignal, the white thing she was lying on is a tracksuit top (all we had in the park)  you can see why I had to blur the edges so much.

 

 

by the way she LOVES the picture so much they are paying for a large canvas print    I do need to offer other edits though..

[ChrisLumix]

here's the orignal, the white thing she was lying on is a tracksuit top (all we had in the park)  you can see why I had to blur the edges so much.

 

 

by the way she LOVES the picture so much they are paying for a large canvas print    I do need to offer other edits though..

 

Ok - it's got the classic 'blue cast of shade'. That is basically what the Temperature slider is for - it will either warm up (which is what yours needs) or cool down, by either boosting the yellow -> red spectrum, or diminishing it. You can do it more precisely with Colour Balance or Colour Curves, but Temperature will cure most of that cast.

[Guest]

how do you vignette using CS2?

 

like the edit

This is the easiest way to do it Leon. I'm using CS3 and presuming CS2 is similar.

 

A quick and dirty example.

 

I-Click on the  half black and white circle at the bottom of the layers Pallete and select "Solid Colour" and from the color picker select white this will fill it with white.

.

2-Select the brush tool and a soft edged brush and with black paint brush over the image to reveal a soft edged vignette...have a play to get the effect you want finally save the image under a different name to preserve the original.  

[geodar]

Hi Leon,

here is my 10p's worth.

nice capture but needs adjustments to cater for the shadow.

I agree with others, I prefer the colour image as the bright head band distracts. I always think that colour pop is better used to draw attention to a subject in a scenic scene or similar.

 

Anyway what I have done is-

Cropped the image to lose the hand, and grass.

Cloned out some grass that was left after the crop, cloned out the small scratch on hand and some very small items around the mouth and the tag on the jacket.

Increased the colour tint to get rid of the blue cast on the white.

Slight reduction of the 'reds' in saturation.

Slight adjustment in levels.

 

This was done using Elements 12 quite quickly, with more time finer adjustments could have been made.

 

I also rotated and flipped the image (and added a frame (my preference)). This was because we automatically read left to right so I think our eyes go to left to right as par of the course. Now we are looking first at the babies face and then move over to her dress.

Cheers

Geoff 

[Guest]

Last time Leon I promise.

 

 I would  invest in something like Elements 12/13 if I were you as you will find it so much easier You can get a copy of 12 from Ebay for £20.

 

This took 5 minutes to do in Elements 12, it took longer to put it together for the web.

 

Open image select remove colour caste and clic on a white till you get it how you want it.

 

Next enhance Shadow/highlights

 

Increase brightness a little and Add Warming Filter.

 

Clone out the blanket label andCrop and Add A vignette as per last instructions.

 

Now you can stop there or go into guided mode and be led along by choosing perfect portrait and just follow the instructions.

 

Finished Image View Large

[Guest Ron]

Wow Paul that is excellent and I have learnt a lot as I,m sure Leon will have from your "how to" guidance.

 

Ron

[Guest]

Wow Paul that is excellent and I have learnt a lot as I,m sue Leon will have from your "how to" guidance.

 

Ron

 

 Thank you Ron, just glad to be of help and share what I know.

[ChrisLumix]

Leon - a vignette that doesn't require any painting ...  (sorry, I've not included illustrations but can if you want)

 

1. Use the Marquee tool (dotted square) and choose the circular marquee

2. Click-and-drag an oval marquee around the part of the picture you want to preserve (you can use arrow keys to adjust its position)

3. In Select menu, choose 'Feather...' and give a high value, e.g. 40 pixels

4. Still in Select menu, choose Inverse Selection

5. In Edit menu, choose Fill Selection.. and pick - e.g. White (like Paul's example)

 

You will end up with only your original selected oval, but it fades out to white around its edges. The higher the number of pixels in Feather, the softer and wider the fade. Or harder and narrower if you reduce the pixel value. The advantage of this method is you don't have to paint at all. The disadvantage is that your final picture will be a perfect  oval, but with the fade out, that won't be immediately noticeable to the eye, as you can see here.

 

Here's what I did using Paul's example : (note that after I made the initial oval selection, I used the arrow keys to nudge it upwards, so that I preserved the top of the portrait]

 

 

As with everything in Photoshop, there are so many different ways to achieve the same - or similar - thing. Explore using, as Paul advises, COPIES of your pictures.

[Leon]

thanks peoples... i#ll have a look for elements on the bay of e

[colinb]

thanks peoples... i#ll have a look for elements on the bay of e

 

 why? you already have CS2 which can do ALL of the above and more? You would just be wasting your money.

[Guest]

 why? you already have CS2 which can do ALL of the above and more? You would just be wasting your money.

 

Colin I have CS3  and use Elements 12 more I don't think I wasted my money.

 

Before that with the photoshop 4.5 version I was splitting channels manually ,creating highlight and shadow masks manually there was no handy highlight/ shadow tool then and a lot of tools that now exist in the latest software had to be done by digging into the software but I would not want to go back to it just because I can or it's cheaper. I was also a beta tester for adobe for 4 years which was interesting at the time.

 

I recommended it to Leon because it is easier to use and in some ways more powerful than the old CS2 which is given away free these days and I do not think Leon wants to become a Photoshop power user but to get good results as easiest has possible and to be honest I'll fire up elements 12 before CS3 and do what I have to do better, faster and easier. If I had to get from A to B as quickly and smoothly as possible I'd choose a modern automatic over a old manual car any day.

[Guest]

I agree with Colin. If you want to spend some money you could take out a sub to Adobe CC - £8. <something> per month . 

 

See~

http://www.tipf.co.uk/index.php/topic/9658-photoshop-cs-by-subscription/

 

That's not saving money Judy at £100 a year compared to a one off payment of £20.

[colinb]

Oly I don't think you wasted your money either but Leon has a tool now that can help him learn, he doesn't need to spend money he needs to spend time it is the only way to learn ANY software. 

 

I'm not quite sure what you mean by elements being more powerful but CS2 is a capable programme he has now and learning some basics with a programme he has rather than trying to buying something he might stick in a draw along with CS2 is pointless.

[Leon]

errr..... I eep looking at some of the tools on the new programmes Colin, things that have a button to press rather than having to learn to do it manually..... I kinda wish I had not started this thread, following tutorials I get  lost after 2 or 3 instructions, think I'll just plod along slowly with what I have... then give up and nip rond the corner and ask my friend Steph to edit my shots before I print them for the young girl who's baby it is

[colinb]

errr..... I eep looking at some of the tools on the new programmes Colin, things that have a button to press rather than having to learn to do it manually.....following tutorials I get  lost after 2 or 3 instructions, think I'll just plod along slowly with what I have... then give up and nip rond the corner and ask my friend Steph to edit my shots before I print them for the young girl who's baby it is

 

which is why I offered to talk you through the basics, using a programme you have, to give you an insight, an understanding, before you waste any more money.