Baby Portrait...

Tim Kirkwood · December 21, 2004

Here is another shot of my friends baby....let me know what you think... thanks all

pathfinder · December 21, 2004

Tim Kirkwood wrote:

Here is another shot of my friends baby....let me know what you think... thanks all

Thats a lot of red - a lot of red - kind of an overwhelming amount of red. I might consider dialing back the red saturation in the dress and go for a more pastel look since the rest of the image is kind of a high key look. Ya think??

Tim Kirkwood · December 21, 2004

Thanks for the tip pathfinder, I will give that a try and see how it looks

What you do you think the best method would be for doing such a thing? I am not a pro at PS yet.

Thanks
Tim

pathfinder · December 21, 2004

Tim Kirkwood wrote:

Thanks for the tip pathfinder, I will give that a try and see how it looks

What you do you think the best method would be for doing such a thing? I am not a pro at PS yet.

Thanks
Tim

I would use Select > Color range and then I would use the eye dropper that your cursor turns into and click on the red of the dress and slide the slider trying to minimize selection of the red hues in the infants skin. I would then use Select>Feather maybe 3 or 4 pixels and click OK. Then I would create a adjustment layer of Hue/Saturation and reduce the saturation of the red to back it off a little. Kind of just decide by eyeballing it really. The beauty of adjustment layers being that if you don't like it - no harm done - delete the layer and start over or just readjust to taste.

I am afraid if you just try to desaturate the whole image that it will negatively effect the skin tones of the infant. Try my suggestion above and see what you come up with.

pathfinder · December 21, 2004

pathfinder wrote:

I would use Select > Color range and then I would use the eye dropper that your cursor turns into and click on the red of the dress and slide the slider trying to minimize selection of the red hues in the infants skin. I would then use Select>Feather maybe 3 or 4 pixels and click OK. Then I would create a adjustment layer of Hue/Saturation and reduce the saturation of the red to back it off a little. Kind of just decide by eyeballing it really. The beauty of adjustment layers being that if you don't like it - no harm done - delete the layer and start over or just readjust to taste.

I am afraid if you just try to desaturate the whole image that it will negatively effect the skin tones of the infant. Try my suggestion above and see what you come up with.

Here is what I tried - selected and desaturated the red - corrected the reddish coloration of the white sheets that was troubling me also - increased the saturation in the blue of the irises. Looks something like this..... Is this better or worse?

Thiago Sigrist · December 23, 2004

Tim,
very nice photo! I love it myself!

About the red tones, you were right in desaturating it, but it must be done only on the red fabric (using perhaps an adjustment layer with a mask, in PS). The extra blue sat on the eyes is great as well, and I would try playing a bit more with the saturation on the skin tones, to try bringing up that warmth and blush usually associated with babies.

Thanks for sharing!
Take care!

-- thiago

fish · December 23, 2004

Cute baby! I agree with the others on the "redness", although I think I would have desaturated the thing under the baby, instead of the dress. Since I'm in a waxy kinda mood, I also think the face is kinda soft. Can you sharpen it any or is it a focus issue?

Lastly, there are two colors that I stay away from when shooting people (including babies): red and yellow. Both of them tend to do weird things to skintones. But that's just me.

Keep shooting the baby! (stop it lynnma...I know what you're thinking).

Baby Portrait...

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