Suggestions on how to make the baby blues "pop"?

[untitled99]

This photo of my friends' baby was taken over the weekend while camping in a very shady area. I'm new to using an SLR and am trying to get better at photographing kids and babies (usually I do macro nature stuff so that the models don't get annoyed and move around!). I am in love with this picture, but i really wish that you could see her eyes more-- any suggestions on how to improve this with some post-processing (i have PS CS4 and lightroom)

Also, any words of advice on photographing kids is always helpful! My niece and nephew (5 and 3 yo) are visiting in two weeks and so I will be getting a lot of practice then :-)

The image was shot in RAW using an Olympus E520 with a 50mm OM legacy lens. I believe that I used an f/1.8 (no EXIF on legacy lenses) and shot in aperture priority.

[hpebley3]

The easy way, open it in Bridge and use the Fill Light slider.

The harder way, open it in PS and use a Dodge brush, sized a little smaller than her face with a pretty big feather and a pretty small opacity. This will let you slowly paint over her face with the brush to lighten just it. The small opacity gives you greater control and the large feathering makes it not so obvious since the drop off is gradual.

In the future, for these types of shots, a flash makes a big difference. It lightens the face and adds a catchlight to the eyes.

Hope that helps.

[irishmuth]

Adorable picture and definitely worth the effort to touch up a bit. The edit that I did mostly involved a shadow/highlight adjustment under image>>adjustments. I also did an exposure adjustment after that and then brightened her eyes a bit by duplicating the layer, setting it to "screen" and lowering the opacity quite a bit (and using a layer mask so the effect was only on her eyes). Lastly, I used this action and adjusted the opacity of certain layers to make it pop a little more.

[LeeR]

Your light source was above and slightly behind your subject throwing her entire face into shadow- pretty hard to make baby blues pop when there is no light in them. So how do you get more light in the eyes in a case like this? One way would be to place her on a white sheet. That would allow more light in the shadows for a very pleasing effect, but it still wouldn't get you the catchlights you most likely want. For that I would suggest you use your on-camera flash. Normally I abhore the little flashes and wonder why such great cameras often have such crappy little pop-ups. However, this is one of those cases where they can be quite beneficial. Look through your camera's manual and see if there is a way for you to set the flashes power for one stop below (-1) the natural light. This will act as fill and provide the little white dots in the eyes that signifies intelligence. (We hope!)

[RLucas]

Originally Posted by irishmuth

Adorable picture and definitely worth the effort to touch up a bit. The edit that I did mostly involved a shadow/highlight adjustment under image>>adjustments. I also did an exposure adjustment after that and then brightened her eyes a bit by duplicating the layer, setting it to "screen" and lowering the opacity quite a bit (and using a layer mask so the effect was only on her eyes). Lastly, I used this action and adjusted the opacity of certain layers to make it pop a little more.

Nice edit Mike!
As far as advice on kids. Maybe SusanH will chime in on this one. That is her forte.

[Digidave]

Originally Posted by LeeR

Your light source was above and slightly behind your subject throwing her entire face into shadow- pretty hard to make baby blues pop when there is no light in them. So how do you get more light in the eyes in a case like this? One way would be to place her on a white sheet. That would allow more light in the shadows for a very pleasing effect, but it still wouldn't get you the catchlights you most likely want. For that I would suggest you use your on-camera flash. Normally I abhore the little flashes and wonder why such great cameras often have such crappy little pop-ups. However, this is one of those cases where they can be quite beneficial. Look through your camera's manual and see if there is a way for you to set the flashes power for one stop below (-1) the natural light. This will act as fill and provide the little white dots in the eyes that signifies intelligence. (We hope!)

Perfectly put. When you want eyes to have that spark-of-life appearance you need a catchlight.

Although, when you are shooting children that are running wild or can't sit still, that may be a little difficult.

[untitled99]

Originally Posted by RLucas

Nice edit Mike!
As far as advice on kids. Maybe SusanH will chime in on this one. That is her forte.

She's one of the ones I was waiting for!

[untitled99]

Originally Posted by irishmuth

Adorable picture and definitely worth the effort to touch up a bit. The edit that I did mostly involved a shadow/highlight adjustment under image>>adjustments. I also did an exposure adjustment after that and then brightened her eyes a bit by duplicating the layer, setting it to "screen" and lowering the opacity quite a bit (and using a layer mask so the effect was only on her eyes). Lastly, I used this action and adjusted the opacity of certain layers to make it pop a little more.

that looks great! I'll definitely play with that action some more. I was trying the dodge tool but I thought it was supposed to be just on the eyes, not the whole face and it didn't work very well.

i'll also play with the layers some. need to get some PS practice in and i have a lot of great pics from her crawling around on the ground.

[wannabephotographer]

This is pretty easy after you brighten up the whole image. Here's a tutorial on how to make the eyes pop. You can even put in catchlights and new pupils .

YouTube - Awesome Eyes in Photoshop

[SusanH1970]

Originally Posted by untitled99

She's one of the ones I was waiting for!

**blush blush blush**

Lee's CC was pretty spot on, particularly about the harsh sunlight. I hate using the popup flash, though - it puts tiny pinlights in the eyes which IMHO just aren't pretty and a pet peeve of mine, LOL. Using a white reflector, however, will put catchlights in the eyes.

Catchlights from bright sky (shot in open shade, she was angled up and I shot from above her slightly - no reflector used):
http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1043/...1ab3eafa_o.jpg

Catchlights from reflector (shot on overcast day, she was looking straight at me, I shot from her level - without a reflector there'd be no light in her eyes):
http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4070/...a748814b_o.jpg

With practice, you'll start to see the light and shadows before you shoot.

Mike's edit looks pretty good to me.

On this thread is a mini-tutorial I wrote about shooting outdoors. Hope it helps.