Newborn Photography Quick Tips & Tricks

Do you see all those adorable newborn pictures and want to give newborn photography a try? Here are some quick tips for working with newborns, plus links to past tutorials on photographing and editing newborn pictures.

A few newborn photography tips:

• Get the space REALLY warm and keep it really quiet
• Use blankets that do not show wrinkles and that do not have a sheen
• Don’t shoot from a perspective that has the camera looking up their nose
• Don’t get so close to the baby that  you ruin the image for certain image sizes (like 8×10 or 5×7); best to move back a bit and give yourself room for a variety of crops
• Pay attention to the small details, like how their hands, fingers, feet are laying

A few newborn editing tips:

• Make Levels your best friend when editing 😉
• Get very familiar with the lasso tool and Hue/Saturation adjustment layer for fixing red splotches and purple feet
• Know how to smooth the skin without smoothing to the point they look like plastic baby dolls
• Learn the blending trick for the blanket background
• Zoom in and make sure to erase the little baby zits they have and remove the goop that is often in their eyes

I do have a baby-specific action called Baby Clean, which I use when editing newborns. Baby Clean is available in the Everyday Essentials set, but in October I will have a new set especially for editing babies.

If you want to delve deeper, here are some Everyday Elements posts written on photographing and editing newborns:

• Newborn photography tips and tricks
• Tips for finding newborn photography props
• Clean edit steps for editing newborns
• Rescuing images with Levels (used a newborn image)
• How to blend backgrounds

**Special thanks to Lisa from A Piece of Lisa Photography for allowing me to use her precious newborn photos!