newborn skin tone

[llofte]

Hi! I've only made a couple posts here, but I'm a major lurker and been learning so much from this forum.

I'm building my newborn portfolio and struggling a bit with skin tone. I have a photovision target arriving soon for custom white balance readings. For this particular shoot, I used a folded sheet of white paper to get a custom reading.

Anyway, here's one for you to look at. I already know that this blanket was a poor choice for this beanie because it blends in too much with the background (if you have any pointers that will help the beanie stand out more, that'd be cool too), but I'm specifically looking for improvements on the skin tone (all CC is welcome). It just seems a little off to me. Or perhaps I'm just going crazy.

Thanks!



Nikon D90
0.006 sec (1/160)
f/2.8
50 mm
250

[fais54]

Okay, this picture is adorable and the skin tone looks fine to me. The hat doesn't blend in that much; but if it's still a problem for you - in Photoshop, paint over the hat in Quick Mask Mode, and make adjustments to the brightness/levels accordingly. To me, it's a great photo. I'm looking in to getting into baby photography; can you explain your light setup, as well as your 'set'?

[llofte]

Wow thanks! I will definitely try out your suggestion.

Light is completely natural from a sliding glass door.

My set up is a beanbag, blanket, and lots of heat. I have a DIY backdrop stand made out of PVC pipe and it is set up at about a 45 degree angle to the sliding glass door. I have the blanket clamped to the stand and laying on the beanbag. It was also an extremely warm day, so I had the parents leave the AC off all day. I also brought along a portable heater and had it pointing at her the entire time.

One of these days I'll get a pull back shot, but you can find many of them online.

Hope that helps!

[JFSanders]

Wonderful high key photograph. There is not any problem with the blanket or hoodie although if you want it to stand out more do as Fais said and mask it and punch up the saturation on the colors. The babies skin tone is just what this newborn's should be. Nice and pink.

Jim

[NicolaB]

The colour looks good in this light although I am wondering if she could do with a wee bit of warming (her face looks cooler). I will pop back later when the conditions are better to see - too sunny now. Re the beanie you could try to saturate the colour just on the hat to bring out the pink and lilac?

There is a slight blow area along the tale of the elf hat and the rim.

Cute pic

Just checked again - I would bring up the recovery and warm her up more :-)