baby girl wearing blue....natural light.

[OverAnalyzer]

ok, I posted a shot of my daughter a few days back and am trying to improve my use of natural light (since that is all I have to work with for the moment, other than my odd attempts at DIY lighting)....this is a shot I took this afternoon with my 50mm. I toyed with it a little afterwards in Picasa 3 -- mainly retouching lovely things like snot on her nose and such. I am interested in your thoughts on the following:

Focus -- this was handheld, which is often an issue for me. I am a shakey lady some days. I am focusing by pressing and holding at the moment. I've been reading on here that that may not be the best idea given this issue.....

Color and light -- how does she look? Natural? Is the lighting asthetically pleasing to you?

Composition -- I suppose not much to ask here as it is pretty much just a head shot. I am struggling with different ways to set up a 6 week old baby...she just won't cooperate....

Anyway...here ya go....I can take it. Really I can...

From 12.8.09

EXIF info:

Dec 8, 2009
1600×1066 pixels – 110KB
Filename: IMG_8231.JPG
Camera: Canon
Model: Canon EOS DIGITAL REBEL XSi
ISO: 200
Exposure: 1/30 sec
Aperture: 3.5
Focal Length: 50mm
Flash Used: No

[bhursey]

It seems some what underexposed to me. I would edit in PP or when taking it if using AV increase the exposure compensation on the camera maybe 1 stop. Although that would put you at a lower shutter speed unless you opened you aperture up and iso.

[cherrygirl]

I agree with the underexposed issue. The only other thing I see is that the focus needs to be a little sharper. I'm big with focus on the eyes, specially with children.

I love natural light and always prefer it.

I have to say the baby is super cute!

[irishmuth]

Adorable shot, but I agree that it's slightly underexposed and the hat and the blanked seem to give a blue colorcast to her face. I did a levels and curve adjustment in Photoshop (auto adjustment for both seem to be pretty close to the right correction). I then did a mask selection and sharpened her eyes with an unsharp mask and also evened out her skin just a bit with the blur tool. Working on my post-edits, so I'm curious what you think.

As for the original photo, a shutter speed of 1/30 is going to be tough to capture a moving kid crisply. Even with a tripod, a moving kid captured at 1/30 is going to be blurry or soft. I think at minimum you need to get up to about 1/60, which means you'll have to drop your F stop to a lower number (larger opening) or increase your ISO. ISO will give you some digital grain, but I'd rather have a sharp shot with some noise than a blurry shot with no noise. Composition-wise, it's a bit too tight for my personal taste, but I think the general rule is that you should not cut off both forehead and chin, and since you have the entire chin in the shot, I think you've obeyed that rule.

Most importantly, she's so cute and the subject really makes the photo! From a first time father of an 8-week-old - congrats!

[SusanH1970]

I agree with the other posters that it's definitely underexposed. It's a little soft, too, but at 1/30 SS that's to be expected hand-held. Her skin tones are really pink, too.

A reflector on the other side of the light source would really help with the exposure and even the lighting out, too.

However...she is ADORABLE!

ETA: Hope you don't mind, she's so darn cute I just had to play with this image. Let me know if you want me to take it down (or if you want to know what I did).

[lputman]

I'm viewing from a laptop that I usually don't comment on color/white balance since it isn't a great laptop for that purpose. The white balance seems to be off on this or it could just be me. What color is the blanket she is laying on?

[OverAnalyzer]

Lori -- the blanket is a minty green (best I can come up with).

Thanks to both of the posters who did some edits on this -- wow. You make me look like a much better photographer. I have been practicing with a white foam board on some other shots but was trying to take advantage of baby's smiley mood so didn't run downstairs to get it.... (obviously didn't quite make that as evidenced by the serious expression)

I would love to know what you did, Susan...you too, Mike. I clearly have a LOT to learn, both about getting the shot right and about how to make it better after the fact. I seriously am amazed at the difference between the shot I took and what you two came up with. I really appreciate the input. And Mike -- I saw some of your pictures of your new baby, too. Congratulations! This is my second -- all I can say is it goes in a flash! So take all the pictures you can!

Thanks again!

[irishmuth]

Originally Posted by OverAnalyzer

And Mike -- I saw some of your pictures of your new baby, too. Congratulations! This is my second -- all I can say is it goes in a flash! So take all the pictures you can!

Thanks! Our baby definitely will not be lacking for child photos when she is older!

I was using Photoshop and added one levels adjustment and one curves actually just hit "auto" for both and it improved the exposure and temperature quite a bit (although I think Susan did a better job getting the skin tones right). Then I sharped just her eyes.

If you don't have Photoshop, Picasa and Picnik.com are both good, free editors. Picasa's "I'm feeling lucky" option does a surprisingly good job 99% of the time with color and exposure.

[SusanH1970]

Glad you liked my edit.

In CS2:

-Duplicate layer
-Levels - slide white slider to left (226)
-Shadows/highlights adjustment - Shadows to 20%, highlights at 0%
-Played around with selective color adjustment - reds, magentas and yellows (can't remember exactly and forgot to keep writing stuff down after shadows and highlights, lol - so the rest is approximately what I did, hopefully I remember at least most of it)
-Flatten image
-Use lasso tool around eyes, right click, then left click for "layer via copy"
-Set layer to screen mode, lowered opacity
-Used big soft eraser to erase back everything but the irises
-Flatten again
-Lassoed the OOF eye, smart sharpen
-Crop

I might have missed one or two steps but that's the gist of it! It's still far from a perfect edit but I did it super quick just to show you how to brighten it up a little and fix the skin tones - I still couldn't get the tones right, but that's something I'm working on myself! Hope this helps.

[irishmuth]

Originally Posted by SusanH1970

-Lassoed the OOF eye, smart sharpen

This is an important step that I forgot to mention. With the left eye being more out of focus, I also did a second sharpen of that eye and it made a big difference.