How to Retouch Newborn Photography in Photoshop

If you’ve ever wondered how photographers can create such dreamy images of newborns, this is the perfect tutorial to watch. Newborn photography is an art that can require a great deal of patience and creativity. The post-processing workflow is no different. There are several steps to take when editing a newborn photo well and this tutorial does a great job of explaining them all. 

PiXimperfect’s Unmesh Dinda provides one of his best tutorials to date. In this video, he combines several advanced Photoshop techniques to show an excellent method for editing newborn photography. Among the many things covered in this tutorial are how to use basic liquify techniques, blemish removal, repairing shadows, color grading, softening skin, and sharpening the image. Two tips, in particular, stood out to me. First, Dinda has a unique method for identifying areas that require blemish removal using a temporary black and white adjustment layer. Second, his technique for blending skin colors is simple, but very effective and would be an excellent method to learn if you shoot portraits of any kind.

As always, I greatly appreciate Dinda’s detail in teaching. He makes sure that every step in the process is explained properly, including not only how to do something, but why. I rarely take newborn photos, but this video was still a must watch for me. The attention to detail and the abundance of tips and tricks including along the way make this a great tutorial for a photographer of any genre.

[via PiXimperfect]

Levi Keplar's picture

Levi Keplar is a wedding and portrait photographer and educator. He currently owns and operates his studio, Katie & Levi Photography, with his wife and is based in the Wichita, Kansas area. He has a passion for both the technical and the business sides of photography and helping others to grow in those areas as well.

Log in or register to post comments
4 Comments

I have never retouched newborn photos but I can see it's definitely important to be able to do this well, especially with studio lighting.

There is no need to be retouching babies. Maybe.... maybe some redness to the skin or blotchiness, or a scratch here or there. But babies are literally perfect, their 'imperfections' are totally acceptable. And even if you were going to retouch a baby, this goes way way too far. Airbrushing the skin texture away?

Just what I needed. I have a new grandchild on the way this summer. Many thanks for this.

Peter

really not easy to retouch newborn since they are full of little skin problem , those small air , small white dot , red area and so on... they are freshly born and full of little imperfection that you have to fix without puching it.... not easy