My baby and her baby

[bugster0121]

This was taken at my youngest daughter's house and captured this when she was playing with her youngest on Sunday. Have done some pp in lightroom (very new to post processing images). Was trying to avoid flash so and was using my 60D at 1600 ISO and utilized a 50mm 1.8 lens at 1/60 (was hand holding). C&C always welcome.

[travis4567]

Very nice Tim. You've really captured their love of each other.

[rpcrowe]

Tim, lovely feeling in this image! I do, however, recommend a hotshoe flash that can be bounced for most images. Using the flash, you would have been able to shoot around f/5.6 or f/8 and gained enough DOF to have both mom and child in focus. Bounced flash looks natural...

[bugster0121]

Thanks you Travis and Richard. A hotshoe flash is on my Christmas List as well as a camera upgrade.

Thanks

Tim

[Downrigger]

Neat photo, Tim. If you're new to PP and have Lightroom, a fun feature to work with for a shot like this is the "post crop vignetting" in the second to bottom-most panel ("effects"). It can help bring your subject(s) forth.

[speedneeder]

Camera upgrade????
Is my 60D holding me back? lol

[bugster0121]

Ty for the recommendation Mark. That might just be the oomph I think would help. Will try that next week when I get my pc back. Brian I am actually thinking about upgrading and going full frame. 6d + nice lens or 5diii.

Thanks

Tim

[JPS]

Hi Tim,
What a lovely picture.

On the C&C front, I think you could push this picture further if you so desired.
I took the liberty of processing your picture how I would have processed it, to give you other options to consider & for comparison; hope you don't mind.
Thanks for sharing.

[bugster0121]

Hi John:

Nope dont mind at all. Thank you very much. How did you sharpen it up?

Thanks

Tim

[JPS]

Hi Tim,
I opened your picture in camera raw; using PSE (Photoshop Elements 9).
I then:-
1. Reduced the exposure by 1 stop; on my screen you daughters face and particularly her teeth looked a bit over-exposed.
2. Re-Set the white balance using baby's 'white' of eye's.
3. Adjusted contrast, to what I thought look right.
4. Increased clarity to 75%

Then I open in PSE.
Then I:-
1. Cropped.
2. Increased brightness slightly, 5%
3. Added slight 'Vignette'.
4. Selected eyes and surrounding area using the 'Quick selection tool' & then used 'Unsharp Mask tool' to sharpen; set at 130%.
5. Adjusted over-all sharpness to finish off.

I'm sure other's would do thing differently & probably better, but that's how I did it.
Thanks for sharing a lovely family picture.
Regards
John

[Colin Southern]

From a purely technical point of view, the image has just a couple of issues:

1. The light entering the scene from camera left leaves some uneven lighting across the scene - so I fixed that with a GND tool to progressively knock it back starting at 1.25 stops.

2. The wide-open aperture has created some DoF issues - Mum's face is in focus, but baby's face is slightly out of focus. I've given it a gentle sharpen, but any more would ruin it.

I'm afraid that this is the kind of environment where a good flash and knowing how to use it makes things a whole lot easier.

[Colin Southern]

4. Increased clarity to 75%

Hi John,

Clarity works well for landscapes, but generally produces a "train wreck" if more than the tiniest amount is used with portraiture because it has the effect of applying a high-radius sharpening halos around everything.

[bugster0121]

Hi Colin & John:

Thank you both very much

Tim