Coffee With Morgan: Editing Newborn Images
>> Thursday, March 11, 2010
I am thrilled once again to have Morgan post a tutorial here at CoffeeShop. This is a retouching tutorial using the free CoffeeShop Baby PowderRoom action. Thank you so much Morgan, I had never thought about gaussian blurring brush strokes, that is brilliant! And you have so many tips that are completely new to me. :-)
Morgan has agreed to become a regular contributor her, and her posts will be called "Coffee With Morgan". I am so excited to welcome her, and I think her skills as a professional photographer AND editing wizard will really add some exciting new blood to CoffeeShop. ;-) If there are any editing enhancement, photography, or photography business questions you might want to ask her, please comment below! She might be able to answer them in a future post.
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I get asked if I have any tips for editing newborns quite a bit, so here is what I do to make those adorable little ones into a beautiful portrait :)
First I will have to say that for newborn pictures it is all about the lighting, even lighting will give you a more even skin tone and you will have less editing to do. Also shooting in RAW is a must! At this session this adorable little girl gave a smile, just 1 smile.....and my strobe, camera left didn't fire so the lighting is not at all what I wanted.
This image is straight out of my camera in RAW format.
When I open up the RAW image in PSE I bring up my exposure and fill light until it is brighter and more evenly lit.
Of course next I run CoffeeShop baby powder room :) It is fantastic!
I don't use the red skin layer, so I start with the soft skin layer (I changed the blend mode so you can see where I brushed) I avoid the detail areas.
Then I use the gaussian blur at a pretty high amount so that it is nice and even.
The result from the soft skin layer after adjusting the opacity.
Next the lighten skin layer, you can see the areas I brushed over, avoiding the detail spots again.
Gaussian blur just as with the soft skin layer, and bring down the opacity.
Result after adjusting the opacity.
Next is the skin glow layer, I cover every inch of skin (changed blend mode to show where I brushed). Gaussian blur just like the previous 2 layers.
Result from skin glow after adjusting opacity
Then we have the eye define layer, I brush over the eyes and little detail areas I want to showcase.
Gaussian blur less this time, just enough to spread out the brush line to a more natural look.
Flatten the image
Now to remove the red tint from the skin. Add an adjustment layer and select hue/saturation.
Once you come to the adjustment layer menu, use your drop down menu to select reds. Use your dropper and select a red area of the newborns skin.
You want to increase the hue, which will turn the skin more yellow. Decrease the saturation thus decreasing the amount of yellow. Lighten a little bit too so that it makes the skin more creamy. These numbers are not the same for other photos, adjust them as much as you need to get the desired look.
Next duplicate the layer 2 times.
With the top layer set the blending mode to multiply, this will add more contrast to your image.
Adjust the opacity down, where it is a little dark but not too much.
With the middle layer set the blending mode to screen, this will brighten the image.
Adjust the opacity down so that the skin is nice and creamy and you still have good details.
Flatten the image
Duplicate the image
Run a high pass filter on the top layer.
Set the top layer to soft light, this keeps your details sharp.
Finally you want to run a reduce noise filter on the bottom layer.
Again the numbers are not concrete, it is completely adjustable to your taste.
Then you flatten and you are done!
Final image :) Isn't she adorable!?
Lastly you can compare the image straight out of the camera with the final image.
Meet Morgan! I am from a small town in southern Texas, but now live in central Texas, Fort Hood/Killeen area to be more specific. I am a stay-at-home mom and do photography in my spare time. I am married to a wonderful man that I was lucky enough to meet and be able to spend my life with. We have two beautiful children, Payton 4 years old & Amelia 1 year old. The thing I love the most about photography is that you can take an intangible moment in time and make it last forever. I don't have any formal training, I just learn from experimentation and research.
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47 Thoughtful Comments:
Wow! I learned so much! Thanks!
My pleasure as always :)
This has helped me a TON...thanks Rita and thanks Morgan for this!!!
Awesome. Thank you. Is there a way to print these as a pdf or word document?
OMG! This is awesome! Thank you so much for sharing this with us Morgan! I have my first ever NB shoot coming up next week and I'm super-excited! This helps ease the worry tremendously!! :) Again, thank you!!!
And a super-thank you for CoffeeShop's awesome actions! :]
Correct me if I'm wrong, because you seem to have a great deal more experience than myself, but couldn't the same effect be achieved in camera with a softbox on camera left as fill light for the shadows? Am I missing something?
This has got to be one of the most helpful tutorials ever!!! I use Baby PowderRoom ALL THE TIME and this will certainly help me to fine tune it so much better. Thanks for all the time you spent to show every screenshot...those are essential to me in really learning the technique. I will be printing this and placing it in my folder of "tips & techniques"!
Very good info. Was wondering...the gaussian blur...is that part of the action, already written in that you worked with? OR did you add that in addition to the action? I haven't ran it lately, and don't remember if that layer is already there or not. I assume, it was the action ran, and then all the steps you took to adjust those layers...
Yes you are correct Chris, I had my soft box, camera left for the fill and it didn't fire when I snapped the 1 smile she gave me.
So I took advantage of the "badly lit" shot to write a tutorial for the what ifs that happen in photography and the very possible scenario of 1 smile from a precious newborn.
You are so awesome! I LOVE all your Photoshop tutes!! One of my favs was the "Making Brown Eyes POP" - my daughter has brown eyes! Thank you for all the free help and downloads!
Come link your tutorial at my party: Thursday's Treasures!!
http://treasuresfortots.blogspot.com/2010/03/thursdays-treasures-week-13.html
Morgan, I see. That makes complete sense. You took the lemon shot and made lemonade. Great job.
Staci it's not in the action, but the layer that I brush it on I find that if I don't run the gaussian blur sometimes it looks fake, or you can see a faint line. So I run the blur so that it has a natural taper to that layer of the action. Plus I don't have to select different brushes and adjust their opacity as I go....kind of the lazy way to do it, but it works :)
Wow, thank you!!
Wow! What a thorough tutorial! I can't wait to try this.... upcoming NB shoot next month. I am puzzled about the Gaussian blur, though... do you just apply that to the layer you're working on?
Hmmm, I'm off to go try it out... I have a feeling it will be obvious once I am in there, following the steps! ;)
I am so excited to see more of these tutorials! They are excellent!!! I love the ones posted already and have learned a lot from them! Can't wait to see more. Thank you both!
Thanks Morgan! We so love all your little tips, I'm actually learning PSE on another level. First Rita helped me, now you! Thank you Thank You Thank you for sharing all your knowledge and tips!
Your tutorial is fantastic! Many thanks to both of you...without incredible people like you guys, I would still be trying to open a picture in pse! Hats off to both and keep up the fabulous work...I know I greatly appreciate it :)
Just a quick note to let you know that a link to this post will be placed on CraftCrave.com in the Tutorials category today [12 Mar 10:52am GMT]. Thanks, Maria
Amazing! Thank you so much!!
Wow...thanks Morgan!!! I will try that when I photograph a baby. I can't believe the difference in photos!!!!
I have tried and tried to get this powder room to work and I can't. I don't know what I'm doing wrong. Can someone tell me exactly what to do. I'm very new to PSE and have PSE 8.
Awesome tutorial!!!
Really?? You guys are amazing to be so generous with all the help you both give! Thanks Rita (I'll be purchasing you watemark action soon!) and Morgan!! By the way Morgan--what did you change the blend mode to so that you are able to see where you have brushed?
I just changed the blend mode to darken :)
The action and the tutorial are both just wonderful! I don't see an "official" place to share with you the edits your time and effort make possible, so I'll just link to my blog where I posted some before & after pictures I was playing with recently. I very much appreciate your generosity.
a.maz.ing Really. You just showed me a ton of new insights that would have taken me many hours to figure out on my own. Thanks!
ok so can you only adjust the exposure and fill like that by shooting raw? i've looked and looked in my pse 7 and 6 and cannot figure out how to do so! help!!!
this is an amazing tut and i'm so thankful for rita's blog
To JMS: I couldn't get it to run either when I clicked on the thumbnail. But I had a completely black thumbnail next to that with the same name... that one ran. But now I don't know WHAT to do. The tutorial talks about brushes? Which ones? I don't know what I'm supposed to be doing to use this. I just got PSE 8 yesterday!
Rach:
Your brush tool is just above the little bucket, that is the brush I talk about :)
Rock N Royalty:
You can open a JPeg and adjust the exposure and fill by going to file>open as and at the bottom in the drop down menu select Camera RAW, select an image and open it.
awesome awesome THANK YOU
I'm completely speechless! Thank you both SO much!!!!
Whoa! When I compared my before and after I was shocked. I can't even believe that I could do this. Wow. Thank you SO much!
you are awesome and thank you for sharing, looks complicated but i will try it. thank you
Great action and tutorial! They are excellent! Love it so much! Thank you!
Thank you so much! I learned quite a bit from this tutorial!
I know this is an older post, but I just had to say thank you! I heave been able to make my pictures of my newborn son look professional even though all I have is a point and shoot camera. Thanks for all your wonderful tips!
I can't wait to try this! I am so happy to find a place where PSE tutorials are offered so I can continue to make my images better and better. THANK YOU!!!
Wow, this is amazing but I did have a question. When I went to apply the skin glow action nothing happened. I kept looking for the brush to paint black and nothing is happening. Please help!
Loved this action...my first time touching up a baby with an action. My degree is in photography...I graduated in 1995...only ever used Photoshop...I love these actions so simple so quick...you ladies are brillant...I was scared when I got back into it that I would not remember or be able to do it but you have made it so much easier...Like riding a bike!!
Wow how awesome are you! Thank you so much for doing this tutorial. I am having a problem with running powder room though, it will work on one photo then the next one I try which is very similar, it won't. Any suggestions at what I might be doing wrong? I am running CS5.
I've tried using the baby powder action in photoshop CS and I could see everything being loaded onto my photo. The only thing is when I tried adjusting any of the layers nothing happened and there was no difference at all between my original photo and after I ran the action. Am I doing something wrong?
great info! thank you!
Wish this could be a little more detailed. Telling what brushes you used and on what levels. I tried to follow but it didn't do anything to my picture.
Thank you so much for sharing this tutorial!!! I absolutely LOVE it. I was looking for a week how to edit newborn skin. I tried on kids too. Working just fine :)
I learn so much from only one action. thank u thank u thank u xxx
I just want to know, what brush do you use for the smooth skin? You didn't show what has been selected that you make they "grey" area with??!!
wowie..this is just what i was looking for ..thank you so very much for the tutorial and for the action..i just took some 5 month old photos of my friends grandson and this really made a big difference in his reddish baby skin thanks so very much
Is there a new way to do the "smooth skin" layer with the newer version of baby powder room? (Now that it selects the skin for you?) I added a layer mask and brushed out the areas that I wanted to put the detail back.. then added the gaussian blur to the layer. Does that basically work the same? Love this tutorial. .thanks so much!
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