Black and white newborn in Mom's hands

[SusanH1970]

I've had a few PM's, emails and Flickr mails asking how I got this shot, so I thought I'd share it here.

Mom was sitting on the floor, I had a black vellux blanket from J.C. Penney over her with just her arms peeking out. I had my Alien Bee 400 with softbox camera right, low to the floor and about 35-40 degrees give or take a few. Even with custom WB in-camera, baby was still really red from being a newborn and mom's hands are also super red from being in a hot house under a blanket, LOL. It was July and I had the clients turn the air conditioning off for the newborn session to keep the house toasty so baby would be sleepy while undressed.

SOOC:
Camera Canon EOS Digital Rebel XSi
Lens: Canon Piece of Crap Kit Lens 18-55 but it's more than a paperweight if you know what you're doing (ask Inkista, she knows. She's all-knowing on pretty much everything, I've decided that because she's taken images with the kit lens that blow me away).
Exposure 0.008 sec (1/125)
Aperture f/6.3
Focal Length 29 mm
ISO Speed 200



To get the BW finished product:

I used the burn tool in CS2, set to shadows, at 20% and used a big, soft brush to go over the black areas. There were some lighter areas that needed to go as well, so I set the burn tool to midtones at 40% and went over those as well.

A crop was in order to make it more symmetrical (note to those that think the ROT must be used at all times - sometimes symmetry and centering works.).

Exposure and contrast were enough for my liking so I did a gradient map (image > adjustment > gradient map), with the foreground set to black and the background set to white.



Obviously I used a text/type layer to do the watermark at a reduced opacity. Forgive that please. I just like to watermark everything I put online.

Hope this helps anyone looking to do this type of photography, feel free to ask any questions you might have.

[FocalFrenzy]

Fantastic image. The B&W conversion really sets it off.

[zona5101]

Excellent image and thanks for the wonderful peek under the covers on how you made the final image...

[azizzhran]

Very cool
Excellent

[SusanH1970]

Thanks, guys.

[phaither]

i feel like i just learned one of the secrets of the universe!! ok, so i'm being dramatic, but it was really nice to see how it was done. thanks for sharing!

[Indigo November]

Thank you almighty Susan!

Great tut, will be using it!

[RLucas]

Very nice work Susan! I don't use the burn tool nearly as much as I should! Maybe this will be just the kick in the rear I need!

[NicolaB]

Fantastic Susan - thanks for sharing that. Two friends about to have babies - whoopie.

[SusanH1970]

Thanks, everyone.