6 month baby photo shoot

[ckannan]

Hi,
This is my first photo shoot and was done indoors using natural north window light only.
I would like some critique on -
1. Does the color of baby's skin look ok ?
2. Is it correctly exposed ?
3. Could anything have been done better in post processing ?
4. The rest of the album can be seen at the link below. I am having a very tough time
making the exposure and color consistent across all the photos. I will appreciate
any pointers in this regard.

https://picasaweb.google.com/chitra....eat=directlink

From Web

Model: Canon EOS DIGITAL REBEL XSi
ISO: 400
Exposure: 1/160 sec
Aperture: 1.8
Focal Length: 30mm
Flash Used: No

[SusanH1970]

Could you show a SOOC? The baby's skin looks way blown out/overexposed and the eyes look a bit odd...might be your post processing.

[ckannan]

This is the RAW file SOOC.

From Web

[ckannan]

Susan,
I keep my monitor's brightness at lowest possible level when i do the post processing, so that the images are properly exposed when printed.

But this means that they may appear too bright on most laptops/computers that have higher brightness settings. I am not sure what the solution is - other than maybe have 2 versions of every image. One with correct exposure for the web and one with optimal exposure for prints ?
-Chitra

[SusanH1970]

Hi Chitra! The SOOC exposure looks much better on my monitor. Perhaps a tad underexposed and cool; maybe a bit cyan/grey?

I don't save two versions with different exposures - just one at full res for print and one at a lower res and watermarked for web, and my prints always match what I have on screen.

Would you mind if I had a play? It may not work for you if you're not calibrated properly. Just turning down the brightness isn't the only thing.

ETA: Had a look at your Picasa album and there are a LOT of cute photos there! But yeah, most are blown. Have you checked the histogram in PP?

[edbayani]

a beautiful baby. the baby's skin is not ok due to slight underexposure. after correcting using levels by aligning the right slider to the point where the histogram rises, the exposure will be greatly improved and some of the skin tones. then you can further correct the skin to eliminate the remaining slight cyan cast. there will be areas where there are still cyan spots but you can remove this by making a new layer and with the eyedropper tool click on the warmest skin tone on the cheek to select this color, then with a very soft small brush set to 10% opacity, brush the remaining cyan affected areas on the new layer. merge and save.

[ckannan]

Thanks for your comments Susan.
I did not keep an eye on the histogram during PP, i was just going by what looked correct to my eye...So i will try to re-process keeping the histogram in mind.

I guess i also really need to calibrate my laptop monitor, but from what i have read, it seems laptops are not easy to calibrate. Do you have any pointers on calibration ?

Please feel free to have a go at the SOOC, it will be interesting to see how your post processing looks like. Thanks !
-Chitra

[ckannan]

Edbayani, Thanks for your comments. I will attempt to post process this image again keeping in mind your suggestions.

[SusanH1970]

Hi Chitra, thanks for letting me have a play. If you hate it I'll take it down. I just did a simple, clean edit. If you like it I'll let you know what steps I took.

Look into Spyder 3 Pro for calibration. I use a desktop but I know several people who have used that to calibrate their laptops and they swear by it.

[ckannan]

Thanks Susan. I like your edit. I can see now that i have really overdone the exposure. I would like very much to know your editing steps. In addition, would you recommend adding some contrast or color pop to the final image ?