Newborns
Babies
Children
Family
Portraits
Posted on August 30, 2010
One of the most beautiful sights a mother can see…
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Posted on August 24, 2010
While we were in Denver, my kids got to go to one of the coolest birthday parties ever. Sweet J. Garen (whose family I photographed back in early 2009 the last time I was in Denver) was turning FIVE and had a rockstar party that was the hit of the century! 
Some of the yummy food – isn’t this kitchen gorgeous? Swoon…
J. Garen’s mom sprayed the kids’ hair all sorts of fun colors and gave them “backstage passes.”
There was a fun box of rocker dress-up accessories too!
The kids got to decorate guitars with stickers and other fun crafty stuff.
Garen’s little brother, Owen.
The birthday boy quite surprised by his sparkler candle!
A birthday boy kiss from Dad.
The birthday boy himself chowin’ down.
My adorable nephew Jack.
Carson was loving every minute of the party!
Cami borrowed her cousin Wesley’s rock-n-roll clothes for the party – here she is reaching for a balloon.
And just for fun – here is a shot of one of the Denver sunsets while I was there. I swear every evening the sky was a different gorgeous color.
Thanks for such a fun party, S family! It was a blast.
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Posted on August 20, 2010
It was practically a miracle that in the fifteen minutes before they left Denver for a road trip to Utah I was able to get these cute faces to hold still long enough for these shots. Meet (more of) my adorable nieces and nephew – who I hadn’t seen in almost THREE years! They live in California, and we lived in Philly…Zack’s brother is an oral surgery resident and Zack was in dental school…the stars weren’t aligned for many visits. I was thrilled to catch up with these guys and especially to freeze them forever for my viewing pleasure until our next get together.
Beautiful Whitney – 6 1/2 years
The studly-and-never-still Cole! Almost 5 years…
And adorable “baby” Annie! She really was a tiny baby the last time I saw her…now she’s almost 3! She looks so grown up in these images.
So fun to see you all – big kisses and hugs from St. Louis!
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Posted on August 17, 2010
I remember when I first started (okay, who am I kidding, I still do this sometimes!), I’d look at some of my very favorite photographer’s websites and think, “How in the world are their pictures so clean, so sharp, so GORGEOUS??!” Sometimes you’d just die to know what goes on behind the scenes. Like most photographers, I try to get my images as perfect as possible in camera – sometimes it works out and sometimes, due to the conditions or my error, etc. , it doesn’t. I do tend to keep my processing as clean and simple as possible though. Today I thought I’d walk you through my most-used post-processing steps. The photo I’m using is a throw-away from a (literally) two minute session I did with my nieces and nephew before they left Denver. It’s a throw-away because the eyes aren’t totally sharp, and that’s my #1 requirement for keeping an image. The eyes must be sharp (if they’re supposed to be…of course there are times when you are getting an artistic shot and the eyes may not be sharp).
Just FYI, I don’t use all of these steps all the time, but some of them I do. I will mark the ones I pretty much ALWAYS use with an asterisk. This one had a few problems that required some additional processing I wouldn’t necessarily always do.
Here is the photo we’re starting with:
***Step 1
My own “The Regular” action:
- Duplicate layer, High Pass Filter radius 7, change mode to Soft Light opacity 50%
- Gentle Boost at 50% (this action was bought from Vibe a couple years ago – use it on every photo)
- Ctrl + E to merge layers
***Step 2:
Curves Bump, then merged layers
Here’s what we’ve got so far.
Step 3:
This isn’t always necessary, but it’s a good way to get rid of color casts (common ones are yellow/green in subjects that are in bright grass, etc.).
Annie’s face had some red/pink hues reflected, so I used the Quick Selection Tool, highlighted her face, and:
Made a Selective Color layer (Magenta -7, Black -2), then merged the layers
***Step 4:
Eye Pop at 80% (since her eyes weren’t super sharp), then merged layers (if you need a tutorial on Eye Pop, see my Tell All Tuesday HERE).
***Step 5:
Patch Tool on face. I use this in many of my portraits of children and newborns. I don’t go overboard, but I try to get rid of boogers and crumbs!
Step 6:
This picture still wasn’t sharp enough for me, so I did an Unsharp Mask, amount 75%, radius 1.5 pixels, threshold 0 pixels. This isn’t a step I usually do.
Step 7:
Again, not a step I always do, but I felt this picture needed it…Burn tool on hair, shirt and background (shadows, 30%, 860 px brush)
*Step 8:
Touch of Light action (free from MCP Actions) on eyes and face (normal, 20%, 666 px brush), one click on each eye and one click on her cheek, change layer opacity to 50%, merge layers – I use this action on many newborn shots, and sometimes with Portraits too – usually only on the face, most specifically in the eye area. Be careful not to overdo it!!! Can’t stress that enough.
Step 9:
I felt like it still needed an oomph, so I did the Gentle Boost action once more at 50%, then merged layers
***Step 10:
Soft Light layer at 10%, merge layers – I do this action fairly often.
And here’s a side-by-side comparison. Nothing mind-boggling, but there’s a definite difference.
Here’s another edit using the same basic steps, plus a tiny crop.
I should also add that for most of these steps, I’ve created my own actions so that I save time. Man, I love Photoshop CS4 for that reason! Hope this helps someone out there.
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Posted on August 13, 2010
Well, we’re home from Denver, and getting settled back into real life. What a fun trip we had spending time with family, eating great food, watching movies and laughing a lot. The day before I left, I took a few pictures of my darling little nephews. Love these boys (and all my other nieces and nephews too of course!).
Here’s Wesley – almost 2 1/2 years
This boy tells jokes as a two year old. Love it.
And here’s his spunky big brother, Jack – 4 1/2 years
Couldn’t help including one more set of kissing shots. Aren’t they cute?
More pictures and sessions to come…have a great weekend everyone!
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