Help with skin tones please

[bmayfield]

I know there are plenty of flaws in this picture, but it is for my sister and I am an unpaid amateur. I see that the focus is soft, maybe too far back, and it bugs me that she moved her hand and it is very blurry. The biggest issue I am having is with her skin tone. I can't seem to get it quite right. I feel like my eyes are playing tricks on me this morning! Any suggestions would be much appreciated!





f/4.5
1/60
ISO 100
32mm
natural light from window, subject front left

[vcw79]

Although I am an amateur too, I think think this shot is nice. IMO, the only thing that is clearly not perfect is the blurriness of her hand. And unfortunately, there is nothing you can do about that. I think the skin tones are just a smigg pink. However, if you increase the saturation of the blanket, it evens out. I played with it in GIMP (I hope you don't mind). I'll take down if you want.

What I did:
Use curves to lighten the darker shadows. Create a duplicate layer and remove/erase the baby from the top layer. Then adjust the saturation of the top layer. Flatten. Apply a very slight selective Gaussian blur to smooth skin -- it doesn't need much. And voila!

Very cute baby with or without PP.

[klam]

Nice pic. Your sister must be happy. I would

Unfortunately for me i'm at work and two of my monitors (not color calibrated) shows to different colors tones. One is too magenta and other monitor is too yellow. What i'm saying is that a person should have a calibrated monitor before commenting on color tone. because color temp differs from monitor to monitor even if its the same model.

My suggestion is to get a color calibration kit for your monitor.

[RLucas]

I think it is a nice baby portrait! the hand being just outside the focal plane gives it a little depth, which is good. The skin tones look good to me. In my opinion, baby skin tones should be on the pink side, as that is how they are in real life. Usually the ones that I have seen warmed with more yellow tones make them look more jaundiced and unnatural.

[bmayfield]

Thanks to you both for your comments (and compliments). I do like the little bit of extra saturation on the blanket. I do need to look in to getting my monitor calibrated. Thanks again, I'm sure my sister will be happy, but I am trying to learn and improve as much as I can.

[klam]

I didn't get a color calibration kit till a year later, and it's only 50% mine. A friend and me split the cost and we share it.

I was annoyed that the image color looked good at home but when viewed at work or elsewhere it was off. Plus when you have pics printed the colors will be more true to what you see on your monitor. I use to throw away prints because the color was off and reprinting them again after adjusting the colors. Waste of money and time.