I am editing a newborn session I had over the weekend and am struck yet again by how different it is to edit these pictures. I strive for a “natural” look;  I don’t want the baby to look “over-processed”. However labor, the elements, hormones and those sharp little infant nails are not kind to baby’s skin. I find babies often need quite a bit of work to give them the look we expect of a newborn – fresh, smooth, dewy, new. . .

I thought I would post a few before & after examples to illustrate what goes into editing newborn pictures.

This little guy is totally cute and a champ at sleeping while I posed him. He was a little older (almost 3 weeks) and had some acne and flaky skin that needed to be addressed. I was able to smooth his skin, getting rid of the flaky quality as well as removing the couple of scratches he had and the acne on his nose.

I find with newborns there tends to be more uneven skin tone/color. Here, this guy had a yellow cast to his skin in the “T” zone while around that was more magenta. I evened this out for the final product.

Sometimes I am so focused on the baby I miss things, like the blanket being wrinkled! Luckily this can be fixed as well. BTW – I knit this hat. Isn’t it cute? I must make another!