How to Retouch Newborn Baby Photos Using Photoshop

Newborn babies tend to have different skin than their older counterparts and thus different retouching requirements. This helpful tutorial will show you everything you need to know about retouching newborn skin quickly and effectively in Photoshop.

Coming to you from Aaron Nace at Phlearn, this helpful video will walk you through the steps of retouching a newborn's skin while also showing you a clever way for making selections in Photoshop. Infants tend to have blotchy skin with uneven color and may also have dry spots that can flake a bit. In the video, you'll learn how to select just the redder parts of the skin using a Channels selection, allowing you to quickly address all the blotchy areas simultaneously, leaving just a tiny bit of touch-up work afterward. The Channels selection technique actually comes in handy in a vast range of situations, so keep it in the back of your mind even when you're not working on newborn shots. From there, you'll learn how to clean up any dry skin and easily add a bit of dimension back to the photo to keep it from being too flat. It's a very straightforward process that makes for great, natural-looking results. 

Alex Cooke's picture

Alex Cooke is a Cleveland-based portrait, events, and landscape photographer. He holds an M.S. in Applied Mathematics and a doctorate in Music Composition. He is also an avid equestrian.

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6 Comments

how to retouch babies:

DON'T!!!!!

It's a baby!!!!!! How sad that you should need to retouch a new word baby. Disgusting, this world has turned to sh±t

Did I do it right, father and son newborn?

Oh boy... reading the two comments above, fstoppers discussions are going the way of YouTube.

This honestly just looks like a poorly lit photo to begin with. Very flat lit. Room seems more lit than the baby. I have shot babies but not newborns so maybe there is something more too it with newborns.

Thank you very much!! My new born granddaughter would be happy with the result!!