I am slow to edit pictures sometimes, as these were taken when Scott was just a few days old, and he is now almost six months old. I feel like I have learned a lot lately in Photoshop to have accurate skin colors when I edit, so I am really glad I waited to get these done. I can’t wait to print them for his room! 
ISO 100 f/2.2 ss 1/80
Look at that newborn fuzz on his back! He has grown up so fast and moved so far past this little newborn stage. Ah, to have those days back again. This one above was a good lesson for me is positioning someone to have a more dramatic lighting effect. The light coming from the window camera right flows over him and gives such dimension to all his features. Compare it to the picture below, which I still love and is a great picture, but it has a more even overall lighting effect. Both great, just different, and can create two totally different moods.
ISO 200 f/2.2 ss 1/80
This picture I love. I took a few in this series, and this one ended up being the best with his little hand peeking up over the top of the blanket. In the original I needed to underexposure it a bit to preserve the detail in the white blanket. If I would have exposed for the skin, the white blanket would have been so bright-just a white blob with no detail. In this one though, you can still see the little fibers of the blanket.
You can check for blown areas in Photoshop by going to Layer > New Adjustment Layer > Threshold. A box will come up, click okay. Your picture will turn all black and white and another box with a histogram graph in it will pop up. At the bottom of the graph is a little white arrow. If you drag it all the way to the right, the whole picture except for those areas that are blown will be black. If it’s all black, that’s good, no blown spots. If you drag it the other direction it will turn it all white, any black area left are spots of black with no detail in it. Again, if no black spots, that’s good. At the top of the graph you will see a box with a number 0-255. O being all black and 255 being completely white. For print it is usually best to be under 245 for the best printing. Meaning no white areas showing up above 245. This of course you’ll have to experiment with see what works best for you. The areas of most concern would be on faces and clothing. Backgrounds would depend on what you’re going for.
Content of the picture also matters though. In the first picture, there was a dark black spot in the shadows under his chin that showed that no detail was there. For me, it didn’t alter the picture at all to loose that detail. If anything it added to the 3-d look of the overall picture. If however, in the second picture his hair would have been all black with no detail in the individual hairs, it would have mattered. It would have made the picture look as if he had a dark hat on. This is a small picture, but bigger, you can still see detail in the black areas of his hair.
After you have checked for spots, just select cancel and your picture will return to normal. It’s a quick way to check for areas in question.
This is also a good way to check with newborn/baby shots that are often taken on black backdrops/blankets to make sure the background it totally black and you haven’t missed any areas when photoshopping. This picture is one I took a few years ago that shows that.
This was when I shot film, and I had to scan it in to convert it to a black and white. I didn’t know as much as I do now and had no idea how to tell if the background, which was pretty much all black to start out with, was completely black. It looked okay on my screen. I sent it to print, and when I got it back there was a spot in the upper right hand corner that you could see was not all the way black. I am glad now I know how to check those sort of things. Again content of the picture. In this case when I would have the histogram up and pull the arrow all the way to the left checking for blacks, I would want all my background area that I want black to show that.
This picture is another example of great dimensional lighting. It was natural light to the camera right, and since it was film, I don’t have the setting for it. My guess is it was ISO 400 color film, f/between 3-5.6, no idea on ss.
