Photoshop tutorial: Newborn photo editing
Posted by Diana Eftaiha on Jun 10, 2011 in Post-Processing | 5 comments
I received a question from Anh Alvey who wanted to learn more about newborn photo editing techniques to aid her in softening and smoothing baby skin and tones in her work.
To be honest I don’t do much editing and airbrushing in my portrait photography, because I like to present people as naturally as possible. That said, I do apply a little editing here and there to cover up for obvious imperfections that might detract from the quality of the photo.
So anyway, I’ve downloaded this newborn photo from dreamstime so I can illustrate the steps involved in newborn photo editing (and portrait photo editing in general).
I hope this post answers your question Anh, and anyone else’ out there as well. So here it goes:
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I started off by duplicating the background image, then applied the spot healing brush tool to specific areas where the newborn had obvious blemishes and baby acne on his face.
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With the patch tool, I fixed the swelling underneath his left eye as well as his chin. For more info on how to use the patch tool for photo editing, please refer to this article I’ve previously posted right here.
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To smoothen his skin and even up his tones I did what is known as photo airbrushing (a while back I posted a detailed video on how to perform professional photo airbrushing, so make sure you refer to it if you need any help in that area).
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Finally I applied a subtle sharpening effect with the unsharp mask filter tool and masked all areas out except for the babies eyes, nostrils and mouth to make up for any unwanted softening that might have occurred during airbrushing, and also to make his features stand out.
I then entered the mask mode (alt+click the mask layer), and applied a subtle blur to the vector mask so the transition between sharpened and soft areas of his face is subtle and not too pronounced.
So guys, remember if anyone has a photography question they’d like to ask, please head over to the Submit your Q! page and post your question right now!
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To me this baby looks too much like a doll after editing – especially by smoothing out the eyes! Looks really silly…parents want to remember their babies how they looked, not some awful overly photoshopped image – removing spots and scratches is one thing but actually changing their features is just taking it too far eww
just looked again…you edited the little double chin out too! haha this is so ridiculous, you’ve obviously dont have any children yourself
This is fucking rubbish. Stop teaching people lame ass ps tricks. Leave it to the professionals. Pratt!
I agree with Emma above, why would you edit out the baby’s chin?? And the “swelling” under baby’s eye is not an imperfection, that’s how chubby babies look! You made the child look very unrealistic.
You have all obviously missed the point; this is clearly a demonstration of HOW to do photo editing, and the endless possibilities. You can take from it what you wish…so leave chins and eye folds if you like. If you’re not interested in photoshop tips then why are you on this page?
Thank you for putting this together. I appreciated it.