Enhancing baby pic - how to get from before to after images

[Spendare]

Hi, just joined up as I'm stumped on how to get the most out of a picture I'm editing.

The photo is of my boy and a design company used this on my website but I now want to use the same image on a leaflet so need it at the original high res and with the top of his head (it was cropped off in the site)

I've done the cut out and some touching up but don't know how to get the brightness the same, particularly his bright blue eyes.

Would be really grateful if someone could give me some tips on how to do this please. I use CS6 if that makes any difference.

My image:


And I'd like to get it looking like this:



Many thanks

Dan

 

[ALB68]

Hi Spendare
The first thing I do with images such as this is go to Images/Adjustments/Shadows and Highlights. You will see an immediate improvement. Push the sliders around to get your best look.
Try that and see if that gets your there.

 

[hawkeye]

There are different methods that would work. Camera raw is a good place to start, here is another which I did rather quickly:

 

[Spendare]

ALB - Thanks that helped but not got me to the right place, he's still very Red

Hawkeye - that looks great, I've no idea what Camera Raw is though, any chance you could explain more please.

Thanks

 

[hawkeye]

Camera raw is generally used to process raw files, however you can open jpg images in it too. The advantage for jpgs is that all the controls are in one place for color balance, exposure, sharpening, hue, saturation, etc. From Bridge right click a jpg and choose open in Camera Raw.

 

[Tom Mann]

Great advice from Larry, ALB68, and hawkeye, but I would add the following comments:

a) It takes many small corrections, all working together to make a really stunning baby portrait. For example, as you noticed, and as Hawkeye corrected, in addition to simple lifting of the shadows, you also need to tone down the overly red color. This can be done in ACR, as Hawkeye did, or, I prefer doing it using a "Selective Color" adjustment layer within PS. One simply moves the cyan slider (in the red tab) to the right, and possibly the magenta slider (also in the red tab) to the left.

b) The image isn't sharp, and could benefit from some sharpening. I used the new anti-shake tool provided in recent CC versions of PS.

c) The image is vastly too low resolution (ie, too few pixels, ie, the pixel dimensions are too small) to be a good basis for reproduction, especially if your leaflet is going to be produced by an offset press. You need to work on a much larger version.

d) The eyes need to be brightened slightly.

e) Babies tend to have mottled skin. For advertising purposes, although it's unrealistic, it's best to reduce this. Evening out the skin tones in larger areas, and spotting away smaller imperfections (eg, crumbs, etc.) will go a long way to making a successful advertising image.

d) You should do a final tweaking of the brightness, contrast, and overall color balance after consultation with your printer and possibly viewing a test print of the pamphlet.

Here's the results of 5 or 10 minutes work on your starting image using some of the above suggestions. Make sure you click the in-line forum preview to see the full rez version.

HTH,

Tom

 

[Tom Mann]

PS - The 2nd example image that you provided (ie, "I would like to get it looking like this...") has a bit of a sunny, overexposed look with more yellow than red hues.

I wasn't sure if what I'm seeing in that image is due to the method you used to generate that image, or that's the way it really looked, so I chose not to implement this until I know if that's really what you want. There are a fair number of posts here on PSG that discuss how to do this both using PS's native tools, as well as commercial actions (usually used to impart a romantic look by wedding / engagement photographers), plugins (eg, NIK Color Efx Pro), etc. If you are interested, let us know and we can point you in the right direction.

Tom

 

[Spendare]

Hi Tom

Thanks very much for the info, you guys make this look so easy! I scaled my version of the image down to upload to the forum, I have the original high res version which is 3264 x 4912 @ 350 dpi as well as a PSD file with the cutting path on it.

Rather than getting too hung up on fixing this myself am thinking it might be best to pay to outsource this work - are requests for this allowed on here? I'd be looking for corrections to be made and the cutting path to the applied - either using the one I've done or you creating your own.

Thanks
Dan

 

[ALB68]

Hi Tom

Thanks very much for the info, you guys make this look so easy! I scaled my version of the image down to upload to the forum, I have the original high res version which is 3264 x 4912 @ 350 dpi as well as a PSD file with the cutting path on it.

Rather than getting too hung up on fixing this myself am thinking it might be best to pay to outsource this work - are requests for this allowed on here? I'd be looking for corrections to be made and the cutting path to the applied - either using the one I've done or you creating your own.

Thanks
Dan

Dan, we have a freelance section in which you can post this. https://www.photoshopgurus.com/forum/photoshop-freelance-work-fee-for-service-section-/
Please read the rules for that section prior to posting it. I would just move this but since there is a good bit of content it might be better to just post a new thread there. Tell us which you would prefer and we can do either.