Baby Close up

[K.ErickPhotography]

Heres my daughter =)
Tell me what you think and what needs improvements. Please feel free to say anything to help I promise I wont get mad lol.

I think it needs something I just dont know what! Do you think its flat ( I shot it with a 135mm)

BTW I need to remove the reflections from her eyes, and the white spots off her right cheek

http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1115/...2c66f667_b.jpg

Exposure: 0.013 sec (1/80)
Aperture: f/5.0
Focal Length: 135 mm
ISO Speed: 160
Exposure Bias: 0 EV
Flash: Off, Did not fire


Do you think it needs to be sharpened a tad??

[GadgetRick]

Your white balance is off (she has blue whites in the eyes). It is a bit flat but it's also a bit underexposed which doesn't help.

The arms are cut off and look, well, strange in this shot.

[K.ErickPhotography]

I played with the WB and this is what I got. Thanks for noticing Im still learning not to miss anything during the early stages of editing. Is this better?

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4006/...b1895d8c_b.jpg

[SandeeWig]

Hi K.Erick,
First of all, what a little cutie pie!!!! I have, literally, hundreds of pictures of my son (now 3) taken in the first few months of his life. Poor child probably thought his mother had a pretty strange looking face!

I'm guessing that this sweetie is still quite young, mainly because the whites of her eyes are so very blue. When I tried to use the whites of her eyes to adjust the WB, the colors went WAY out of whack, which told me, they are not, in fact, white just yet. I set the WB using her headband, and clicked around it until I found one that was most pleasing to my eye (i.e. probably not exact).

Other things I noticed is that the image is a bit underexposed, and the right (camera left) side of her face has a strong yellow (to the point of blown) color cast (maybe she was next to someone wearing yellow?).

So, I had a quick play to see what it would take to modify a few of these things. Here are my results:
Before:


After:


I corrected WB in Adobe Camera Raw, then went to PS CS4
Cropped the image to put her eyes on the top 3rd line instead of dead center.
Used the magic wand to select the whites of her eyes (feather slightly at 1.0, and may have expanded a bit to make sure i got them all), and used a color balance layer to remove the cyan/blue from the whites of her eyes.
She was looking a little yellow to me (maybe b/c my WB was not spot on), so I did another color balance layer and added cyan and blue to cool her off a bit (had to mask out the eyes because that made them blue again!)
Selected the right side of her face, where the strong yellow cast was and did another color balance adjustment to minimize the cast and even out her skin tones.
Curves adjustment layer to brighten her up a tad.

Happy to take it down, just say the word. But thought pictures might help you visualize my steps. Also, my edit is not even close to perfect or complete; it's just an effort to show what I would have done. Again, let me know if you'd like me to remove the images.

[K.ErickPhotography]

Thanks Sandee for your help ! Ill have to give it a try when I get home. WB gets me every time! =) I need to do some research on it. I need to learn color correction also soo much to learn

[SandeeWig]

Believe me, I know how you feel! I'm really just beginning in my efforts to color correct, so I take all the practice I can get! It's a pain!!

[NoSoup]

This looks like a snap shot. Do you charge for this? Back to square 1.

[SusanH1970]

Originally Posted by NoSoup

This looks like a snap shot. Do you charge for this? Back to square 1.

If you read the first sentence of the original post, you'll see it's the OP's daughter.