photo editting tips needed. Newborn photography?

[Amy Carey]

I have been trying to get good shots of my new great niece, and what looks fine and in good light to my eye, once the shot is taken, her complexion turns red and ruddy ...and also that newborn hair that is on their backs when they are tiny? REALLY pronounced when I look at them on my screen. Any suggestions to give her back her normal complexion and not look so ruddy?

[Traci Reed]

go to the hue/saturation filter in PS and change the channel from "master" to reds and desaturate..that's what I do

[MandaT]

Can you post one as an example?

[*Celeste*]

i don't want to highjack this post but i get a pink hue on my photos alot - would the hue/saturation thing work for these too?

[Traci Reed]

probably..post an example?

[*Celeste*]

i need to recalibrate my monitor too - it could be that. should dig out the spyder.

here's a link to a photo - sooc just resized to upload...


i tried the levels with the eyedropper method but i don't like the correction. used AWB here. 50 mm 1.8 - F3.2 1/250 ISO 320 (it was a bit shady)

i notice this pinkish cast in different situations too.

[Ginger_79]

I'm editing a few baby pictures right now, too. For the red rash on their little, always wet cheeks I sometimes use a soft brush. I use the pipette to pick the skin colour from an even area, then take a diffused brush, set the opacity to a few percent and paint over those areas until it looks fine. Remember to do that on a new layer or duplicate your photo as this is a destructive method.

Oh and Celeste, what camera are you using? I forgot how I did that, but I remember on a DSLR you can correct it directly if it occurs constantly. I believe under "user defined modes" or something? You know, where you choose modes like "vivid", "neutral", "landscape" ect. I think I set up my own one and corrected the colours to my liking. Had to do that only once when taking pictures indoors in a room with purple walls. Terrible colour cast all around...

[MandaT]

Celeste that looks a pretty easy fix.

The photo looks a bit cool & with a hint of magenta. You can fix both of these either by white balancing or with the hue/sat.

Not sure if you use Lightroom, but it's where I do almost all of my editing. Just use the white balance sliders & add a little more on the yellow blue slider & less on the magenta/green slide.

I don't have a full Photoshop & so any other things I do are in PSE. I pulled your photo in & here's what I did to fix the color: duplicated the layer & ran the adjust for skin tones. This made it too orangey/tan so I just lowered the opacity until the colors were corrected. Not an extreme difference:

[Ginger_79]

Actually, looking at Amanda's fix, maybe one of the premade modes on the camera will work as well, if you can find a "warmer" one. I think my photos have a similiar cast when I use the "neutral" setting, which is why I rarely do.

[Amy Carey]

it's amazing I can do what I do with PS cause half of what you ladies talk about goes right over my head, lol. I did do Traci's suggestion with the HSL and lowering the red and that helped. It's just so funny ... she is a preemie so she has a lot of that new baby hair on her back and it doesn't look too pronounced until I take pictures of her nakie lol

[profiler_mar]

Have you tried any photo actions? My Four Hens has some that are perfect for softening and toning down baby photos.

[*Celeste*]

thanks amanda. i have lightroom i just need to find the time to learn it. sigh.

i love the edit you did. i don't think there is adjust for skin tones in cs but i have pse7 so I could correct in there!

[heathergw]

Celeste, you can also take a look at Traci's Technique Tuesday... I did a tutorial last week about white balance in LR, ACR and PSE.

[nun69]

I found this Not sure what it entails but it looks like it could be promising~
http://www.iheartfaces.com/tutorials/

[*Celeste*]

will do heather!