First go out Newborn shoot

Fairdale · Apr 8, 2013

Hi Everyone,

I did these photos of my girls when Ava was about 10 days old, as I would of loved to have all the proper equipment to do the photo's but at this stage I was unable to afforded it, so I have just used what I had around the house (sheets, towels, my older girls bean bag, throw rugs and pillows). As my older girl just wanted to cuddle, kiss or just have here hands on her and would only still for a couple of photo's. As my house is an old dark house I used the natural light coming in on my patio (on the few nice sunny days I had). I hope yours like them any CC is more then welcome.

1)

2)

3)

4)

5)

Thanks

Heitz · Apr 8, 2013

I think this was a good attempt, but allow me to be harsh (welcome to TPF).
#1 - nice idea, but not enough light. Also your post processing is strange. did you boost the clarity or something? I'm seeing some edge effects
#2 - Good, but would have been 10x better with flash
#3 - very odd indeed. Your photoshop job disembodied everywhere. Looks like they're floating.
#4 - this isn't bad, but your blacks are at 0, so again kind of looks like floating.. Also some lights would shape this up some.
#5 - I'd suggest you not cut off their feet, but you kind of nailed it here. B&W is forgiving. Composition is nice. It says something. However, still kind of looks like they are floating, and I think I detect some rough photoshopping along the edges. Best you get it right in the camera.

Rebekah5280 · Apr 8, 2013

Please post some originals. I'd like to see some without the odd post processing.

I think that 1, 2, and 3 could be saved and turned into something really nice and I wouldn't mind giving it a whirl for you.

Fairdale · Apr 8, 2013

Rebekah5280 said:
Please post some originals. I'd like to see some without the odd post processing. I think that 1, 2, and 3 could be saved and turned into something really nice and I wouldn't mind giving it a whirl for you.

Hi rebecca i will post the originals I have just posted them as straight out of the camera just converted to jpeg, if you can let me know how you did that would be great so i can try to improve my editing skills.

Heitz said:
I think this was a good attempt, but allow me to be harsh (welcome to TPF).
#1 - nice idea, but not enough light. Also your post processing is strange. did you boost the clarity or something? I'm seeing some edge effects
#2 - Good, but would have been 10x better with flash
#3 - very odd indeed. Your photoshop job disembodied everywhere. Looks like they're floating.
#4 - this isn't bad, but your blacks are at 0, so again kind of looks like floating.. Also some lights would shape this up some.
#5 - I'd suggest you not cut off their feet, but you kind of nailed it here. B&W is forgiving. Composition is nice. It says something. However, still kind of looks like they are floating, and I think I detect some rough photoshopping along the edges. Best you get it right in the camera.

Heitz as this is the most editing i have done to any of my photos, as i was using what i had, i try the on camera flash on a couple photos but it gave really dark shallows, and over exposed areas, as i have not used my flash before i really need to learn about using it correctly, so I when back to the natural light, I also cloned the backgrounds to remove the wrinkles or so that you could not see though ect so that most like where the strange processing rough edges come (I did try other ways of removing wrinkles that I had research on the net and still trying to get them to look right as I think it would help the photos instead of cloning the hoe background i could be wrong but). With the clarity I did move the slider up as I was informed from another forum that was the best was to sharpen your photos is that wrong? As with the campdraft photo (the few i have done) i pretty much do a noise reduction sharpen straighten the background and crop them as I have done done much posed photos I just mainly took photo of my older girl and did the same as my sport photos to them, and this was the first time i had picked up my camera in 9 months with every thing that had happen though my pregnancy and with everything at work. Thank you very much for you harsh feed back as I am only going to grow from it .

frommrstomommy · Apr 8, 2013

I really like #2. The one with sister is adorable.. but the outcome looks too photoshopped for my taste.

Rebekah5280 · Apr 8, 2013

So here would be my edits for these. Keep in mind, that I did these quickly. lol I'm not sure wht you were trying to completely remove the sheets that you were using. They were wrinkled, but I used a mask and blurred, then painted out your kiddos to remove the wrinkles and soften the draping.
I lightened up each picture quite a bit. I like my baby/kid pictures to be nice and bright. This is just my personal preference.
I did a little skin smoothing to even out the patchy red blotches on babies face and body. Just a little though. I also sharpened the eye slits, eyebrows, the lines around the nose and also the lips.
I adjusted the tones for the skin.
Now, there are a lot of things that you should have done differently when you were taking these pictures. The first one, babies face needs to be facing the light, not away.
The second one (here), baby's arm is covering half her face. Lift baby's face/head up and forward so her full face is showing. Also you can't see her feet at all, which I would expect to see in a full body shot like this one. I like to cross my baby's feet fold them toward the tummy and tuck them under so you get a full footsie sticking out.
The shot with her sister would have been much better taken at you older daughter's eye level. And even better than that to have baby propped up to your daughters chest height (like laying on an ottoman or something), with your older daughter kneeling behind with her hands on baby. There is just a lot of negative space in this picture.

Again, these would be how I would edit the images you posted. Congrats on your baby!!!

Fairdale · Apr 8, 2013

frommrstomommy said:
I really like #2. The one with sister is adorable.. but the outcome looks too photoshopped for my taste.

Thanks for that as I still have a lot to learn about doing photoshop with these, it was one that I had not put her in position for I was trying to pull some of the wrinkles out of the blanket and when I glanced over at here and the way she had put her hands I quickly got the camera to get the shoot before she had moved. Thanks so much for taking the time to comment on them as it all very helpful, and given me something to go and work on in my spare time.

Fairdale · Apr 8, 2013

Rebekah5280 said:
So here would be my edits for these. Keep in mind, that I did these quickly. lol I'm not sure wht you were trying to completely remove the sheets that you were using. They were wrinkled, but I used a mask and blurred, then painted out your kiddos to remove the wrinkles and soften the draping.
I lightened up each picture quite a bit. I like my baby/kid pictures to be nice and bright. This is just my personal preference.
I did a little skin smoothing to even out the patchy red blotches on babies face and body. Just a little though. I also sharpened the eye slits, eyebrows, the lines around the nose and also the lips.
I adjusted the tones for the skin.
Now, there are a lot of things that you should have done differently when you were taking these pictures. The first one, babies face needs to be facing the light, not away.
The second one (here), baby's arm is covering half her face. Lift baby's face/head up and forward so her full face is showing. Also you can't see her feet at all, which I would expect to see in a full body shot like this one. I like to cross my baby's feet fold them toward the tummy and tuck them under so you get a full footsie sticking out.
The shot with her sister would have been much better taken at you older daughter's eye level. And even better than that to have baby propped up to your daughters chest height (like laying on an ottoman or something), with your older daughter kneeling behind with her hands on baby. There is just a lot of negative space in this picture.

View attachment 41745 View attachment 41746 View attachment 41747
Again, these would be how I would edit the images you posted. Congrats on your baby!!!

Thank you so much for taking the time to do that as they look much better and going back towork the all with a new way of doing them, they say that they are ment to be the sleeps in the first 10 days but I can say that with my two girls this was not the case as every time I tried to move her hand or reposition her she would wake up or just moved back to we're she was most comfortable for her as I think if she sleep for move then 5 minutes at a time I was lucky. That we're I would of loved to have a sec part of hands so I could be ready with the camera and some putting her back in position. To the lightening I tried to have her head at 45 degree to the light but looks like I need to do some more work and practice on using the natural light to help me. Thank you do much this has been very helpful and very kind of you to take the time to re-edit them to show how they can look much better.

frommrstomommy · Apr 8, 2013

Believe me.. not all newborns are sleepers. Lol my son was a terrible sleeper early on and was sooo bad for our photographer who did his newborn shoot.

Fairdale · Apr 9, 2013

Yes frommrstomommy some do sleep and some dont after working with babies in child care for 8 years I have learnt that before I had my own and having to take photos for work with an point and shoot camera I have learnt that some times you just got to go with what the bubs are doing insteady of having them uncomfortable and that what I end up doing with her instead of getting photos were she not looking happy or crying her head of thoughout them