I love babies! Who doesn’t? But as a photographer, their skin gives me fits. By the time they have been out in this world for a week, the baby acne sets in as well as patches of dry, peeling skin. Nearly all have dark circles under their eyes and some are even blessed with a little cradle cap. No wonder they sleep all the time! I would, too.

In the photograph above, we have an absolutely adorable 3-month old. She was enjoying some tummy time, lifting her head just so. Overall, I really like this photo, but to make it stunning, it needs some work.

So here we have a close-up of our little drool monster. Adobe Photoshop has a cloning tool that can easily clean up her skin. The clone tool looks like an Atari handset. It allows you to “clone” one area of pixels over another area. So, for instance, to clean up an area, I will clone a desirable patch of skin and stamp it over the red skin, thus covering it up.

I do this by setting my sampling point on it, pressing alt, and clicking on it. Then I release the alt key and can clone away. You may change the size of the brush as well as the opacity. For instance, when working around the eyes, I use opacity 30% so the changes will be very subtle. Most of the time, my opacity is at 100%, though.

And here is the final product. For finishing touches, I burned and dodged a bit and cropped in for a better composition. More on those subjects later. For now, enjoy this cute, blemish-free, baby photo!

Thanks for reading! I am always looking for great photo stories to tell in the Chapelboro area. If you know of someone or something that should be documented, please write to me via email here.

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