Editing a newborn photography session in my Glasgow studio is great fun but I have to say, it can be challenging, labour intensive and can take anywhere between 2-4 hours to edit a full gallery of between 40-60 images.
As you know, your baby is perfect in every way and I strive to enhance your newborn’s natural beauty, carefully retaining every detail as is I captured it and not to alter the images too dramatically.
However, babies are renown for having red, blotchy skin tones, jaundice yellow skin, pimples, milk rash, purple feet and flaking skin, sometimes all of the aforementioned! So it’s essential that I clean up these little imperfections before you view your images.
Any professional photographer will know the most important step before the shutter button is clicked, is to get the exposure right in camera. The lighting should be soft and pretty and the white balance must be correct (I use a grey card to ensure correct colour temperature). Getting these steps right in camera, before you start shooting will cut down on editing time dramatically.
Following the above steps, it’s a simple job of cleaning up any blotchy, flaking, spotty skin and fixing red, yellow skin tones. I use the Frequency Separation technique to do this using the patch tool to make selections. It allows me to correct both colour and textures simultaneously. It’s important that your baby’s skin looks smooth, soft and not like plastic and the frequency separation technique allows me to edit the skin so it looks beautifully natural, and not at all fake.
I use a safe levels and contrast action which I learned from photoshop expert Guy Gowan, this action allows me to brighten and increase contrast in my images without having an ugly change in skin tones.
Lastly, I may warm the image up slightly using Erin Tole’s paintbox action.
Editing sources that I can totally recommend are Aaron Nace on Plearn.com and for actions Totally Rad, in particular, Pro Retouch 2.
I love looking at other photographer’s work and get inspired by how they edit their images. I adore the pictures made by Julie Grant who specialises in children and family photography down in Loughborough. You should check her amazing website out.
If you’d like me to make some amazing newborn portraits of your baby then you can contact me on 07581 561646, or here, or email me at dawn@dawnmartinphotography.com, sign up for my newsletter and receive 20% off your first sitting fee.
Dawn Martin Photography is a Scottish newborn and family photographer proudly serving Glasgow, and South Lanarkshire. Dawn creates beautiful portraits of your children, as newborn babies and as they grow into little people.
What a lovely image!! Great to see behind the scenes and hear about your editing work flow xx
Thanks Julie x
So great to see how you achieve such great images.
Aw thanks Emaily. x
Thank you for sharing I loved reading it Dawn
Thank you Jill x
So important to have baby safe at all times. Thank-you for sharing how you do this and beautiful edit!!
Thank you Amanda. As you know baby safety is the first priority. x
Love to see how you achieve these stunning images?
Awww thank you Bea <3
Brilliant. It’s great to see behind the scenes on how your composite froggy image was achieved! x
Thank you Lynne x
That baby’s hair!! Love!! So great to read how you use such safe practice and photoshop to create these lovely newborn images 🙂 xx
Thank you Laura x
Really lovely images Dawn xx
Thank you Beth x