Photo reference of mother and baby

Jennifer Geary · 10-28-2004, 06:19 PM

Hi again, I am really serious about finding a good photo that will work for a painting. How about this one? Chris, you said maybe shooting one of the boys with my hubby. Here is one that my husband took of me and one of the twins. No flash was used, but I think it might be too dark. What do you think? Comments??
Jen

Kimberly Dow · 10-28-2004, 10:03 PM

I think the color is too yellow - have you tried sitting near a window?

Michele Rushworth · 10-28-2004, 10:31 PM

Cute photo, but Kim is right, the color is off. If this was shot digitally the white balance wasn't set to tungsten to match the color of the indoor lamp. If it was shot using film, the camera probably had daylight film in it which was not matched properly to the color of the light.

Cindy Procious · 10-29-2004, 10:45 AM

Easy enough to rectify in photoshop, although it is better to start with the correct white balance setting. (I almost always mess that up, anyway.)

Congratulations to you and your family for these beautiful babies!

Jennifer Geary · 10-29-2004, 10:59 AM

Cindy, how did you do that?? I tried to play with the color values of this picture, but couldn't get anywhere near what you just did! Can you share how you were able to get the colors so much better? THANK YOU!!!
jen

Cindy Procious · 10-29-2004, 11:22 AM

You're welcome, Jennifer.

If you have Photoshop - the first thing to do is clone the layer so you don't mess up your original, then go to Image>Adjust>Hue/Saturation. Pick red, then play with the sliders until it looks good.

Then you can go into Image>Adjust>Variations and juice up midtones, lighten highlights, give the shadows a different color cast.

Try Image>Adjust>Levels to lighten midtones to see more information.

Then if you want to get really funky, posterize your image to see where your lights and darks are. Here's an 8 step posterization in greyscale.

You can see that your son's clothes are the highest key - bringing the focus right to him. I'd say this is a good starting point to think about a pose - maybe if you turn a bit to your right, so you can see his sleeping face. Also, lower the camera level more to eye level.