Look Who's Smiling!

[coupekid]

Apologies for my lack of involvment here of late, but had a rather hectic time of it recently....anyway, got a couple of interesting shots coming up, which I hope youll enjoy.

Mean time, the little one has started smiling! Amazing to see the first time she did it. Today, I managed to capture a picture of her smiling, which I was pretty happy with!

Comments welcome! Taken with the 50mm f1.8 lense.
Cranked it to f8, used a make shift deflecter behind and to the sides, and used the flash gun aimed right against the ceiling with the stofen filter on the end.

Obviously carried out several tweaks as well.

[Pops]

Re: Look Who's Smiling!

The first smiles are truly wonderful and this one is no exception. She has obviously learnt how to focus her eyes on something interesting as well.

Personally I would have softened the skin a bit to have covered the normal baby skin blotches. I did that with my grandaughter and thought it was an improvement. It certainly made the prints look better.

[coupekid]

Re: Look Who's Smiling!

The first smiles are truly wonderful and this one is no exception. She has obviously learnt how to focus her eyes on something interesting as well.

Personally I would have softened the skin a bit to have covered the normal baby skin blotches. I did that with my grandaughter and thought it was an improvement. It certainly made the prints look better.

Thanks Pops. I dont know why it looks so blotchy here, she has got everso slightly blotchy skin due to milk rash etc, reducing the size seems to have accentuated it slightly.

But what I did, was add some gausian blur to cover it up, then bring back the features (eys nose, mouth etc)
Do you have any advice on other methods that may help?

[Pol]

Re: Look Who's Smiling!

Thanks Pops. I dont know why it looks so blotchy here, she has got everso slightly blotchy skin due to milk rash etc, reducing the size seems to have accentuated it slightly.

But what I did, was add some gausian blur to cover it up, then bring back the features (eys nose, mouth etc)
Do you have any advice on other methods that may help?

Awwww bless her. She'll be dealing with 'er own blotches and zits soon enough - courtesy of the latest casmetics.

Seriously though - have you tried some slight adjustments to the hue/saturation, especially the reds.

I'm attaching a very quick attempt I've done with CS3 using image adjust >> hue/saturation.

Created a new layer, lowered the red saturation to about -15, hue approximately +2 or 3.

Turned the adjusted layer into screen blend mode then lowered the transparency slider to approx 40%.

Flattened the image and touched up any visible spots/blotches with the healing brush.

Dunno if it's any use as you're the only person who can judge the colour and intensity of her pink clothing.

Whad'ya reckon?

Pol

[Ian]

Re: Look Who's Smiling!

Apologies for my lack of involvment here of late, but had a rather hectic time of it recently....anyway, got a couple of interesting shots coming up, which I hope youll enjoy.

Mean time, the little one has started smiling! Amazing to see the first time she did it. Today, I managed to capture a picture of her smiling, which I was pretty happy with!

Comments welcome! Taken with the 50mm f1.8 lense.
Cranked it to f8, used a make shift deflecter behind and to the sides, and used the flash gun aimed right against the ceiling with the stofen filter on the end.

Obviously carried out several tweaks as well.

Lovely expression, Ben - "See someone with my dinner!, yeah!"

I think the plain white is quite stark as a background - that's my main impression of an area that could be changed.

Ian

[Pops]

Re: Look Who's Smiling!

Thanks Pops. I dont know why it looks so blotchy here, she has got everso slightly blotchy skin due to milk rash etc, reducing the size seems to have accentuated it slightly.

But what I did, was add some gausian blur to cover it up, then bring back the features (eys nose, mouth etc)
Do you have any advice on other methods that may help?

They all seem to get milk rash for the first few months.

I use Paint Shop Pro X1 and it does have it's own 'Skin Smoothing' command with strength value being imputted by the user.
The image here had a strength of 37 applied and I also reduced the red in Saturation/Hue a bit.

Pol's guide will probably give you the a similar effect if you use CS2

[coupekid]

Re: Look Who's Smiling!

Awwww bless her. She'll be dealing with 'er own blotches and zits soon enough - courtesy of the latest casmetics.

Seriously though - have you tried some slight adjustments to the hue/saturation, especially the reds.

I'm attaching a very quick attempt I've done with CS3 using image adjust >> hue/saturation.

Created a new layer, lowered the red saturation to about -15, hue approximately +2 or 3.

Turned the adjusted layer into screen blend mode then lowered the transparency slider to approx 40%.

Flattened the image and touched up any visible spots/blotches with the healing brush.

Dunno if it's any use as you're the only person who can judge the colour and intensity of her pink clothing.

Whad'ya reckon?

Pol

grand job Pol, and I like what Pops has done also.

Thanks for the tips, that should help no end!

[Caz]

Re: Look Who's Smiling!

A lovely photo Ben, and I also like the treatments by Pops and Pol.

Time to get the 'aaaahs' out again - they are really lovely at this age, and it's wonderful when they start to recognise and welcome you (before they get a bit older and go 'all shy!')

[Pol]

Re: Look Who's Smiling!

Definitely a shot for the album, Ben.

Do please be sure to get at least a couple of good quality 6 x 4 prints of this one along with a couple from lots of the other shots you take of her. Archive the prints carefully as well as the digital files.

We have lots of pictures of all 3 of our sons, prints as well as the original negatives and we're so glad we kept all of them - even the not-very-good shots.

As a matter of fact I've been spending the past 3-4 weeks sorting through a load of digital files and had 5 sets of prints from photobox last week. I had a set sent directly to each of our sons, another set for my mother-in-law and a set for ourselves.

Pol

[lumix]

Re: Look Who's Smiling!

grand job Pol, and I like what Pops has done also.

Thanks for the tips, that should help no end!

I would agree with all the advice and help Pops and Pol have given. I personally think your problem was using flash. Babies have a very thin skin in their early months and flash light seems to penetrate and show up the blood vessels below the skin. I've always advised using natural light when ever possible. Reflectors can be improvised so no need to spend cash on more equipment. Baker-foil or white card will do just as well. They are nice shots of a grand looking baby, just let down by hash shadows and having to soften the image to hide the skin blemish.