Hints for Taking Better Baby Photos

By Michael Russell

I love baby photographs. I have researched the library and the internet to find the best and most basic tips for you to use when photographing your newborn. Using these helpful hints will help to ensure better photos for you and for baby’s photo history.

You will want to make sure your camera has fresh batteries. Be sure to have your CF card ready to go if you are using a digital camera. In a standard camera, make sure you have fresh film. As for the film, make sure it is at a constant temperature. You do not want it lying around for several years, then dig it out of the trunk of your car and expect great results. To always be ready, keep a disposable camera in the diaper bag to catch the photo opportunity while you are running around with your precious bundle.

Soft colors, soft light and soft textures work best when photographing babies. These take away from distracting backgrounds or clothing colors and allow the photograph to be focused on the baby. “Onesies” work well for clothing because they conform to the body and show the adorable, round shapes of the child. Don’t overlook their hands and toes. A baby’s personality is often found in these digits.

A blanket covering the baby seat will draw attention to the child, not to the busy pattern of the seat itself.

As for lighting, bright light makes babies and all other people, squint. A soft source of light by a window or under the shade of a tree works well. Morning light or sundown is a good time to photograph outside.

One very important thing to remember is baby’s schedule. The best photographs are taken when the baby is rested, well-fed, clean, etc. This involves planning. Ensure everything is gathered in advance to have a successful picture taking session. Add the baby to the equation and you are on your way to a successful photography session.

Once the photography session is completed, process the photos. I recommend picking the six best photos and order plenty of these for the family. I like to have a prewritten list of names so I won’t order more than necessary.

It is helpful to write the date on the front of the envelope that the pictures come in. Also write whether it was a special occasion, such as baby’s first steps or her special smile. Be sure to store your CDs or negatives in a dry, temperature-controlled place. Put the best photo immediately into your photo album. It can simplify your life if you keep up with the album assembly regularly.

Some families have a professional photographer as their family photographer. They keep an annual or bi-annual visit to the family photographer, just like the dentist or doctor. This is important in creating the family photo history. Be sure to find someone who has a specialty in photographing babies, children, families and even the family pet. The family photographer should make the entire family feel comfortable and make your baby look as good as she can in front of the camera.

Michael Russell

Your Independent Baby Photos guide.

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Miss Domestic on February 17th, 2007 | File Under Photography | No Comments -

Useful Tips and Hints for Best Photo Quality

By Ziv Haparnas

Digital photography revolutionized the way in which we take, view and share photos and also the way in which we print them. Many digital photos never get printed but there are still many of us who prefer tangible paper prints. Photos can be printed using a professional service (in-store or online) or at home. In this article we will give you tips for getting quality prints at home.

A few years ago getting high quality prints at home was an expensive task that was only suitable for semi-professionals who could afford it and who had the know-how. Today low cost printers can generate amazing quality prints and sophisticated software can do most of the processing work behind the scenes. The result is that even amateur photographers can generate very high quality prints by pressing a single Print button.

There are a few simple tips to follow that can help in getting higher quality prints:

Edit your photos: make sure that you print exactly the photo that you want printed. Using simple photo editing tools (such as Photoshop or even Windows built-in Paint application) you can crop a photo to include just the area you are interested in or crop out parts which you do not want in the print. For example you took a photo of a group of friends but on the left corner of the photo there is a bystander that just happened to be there. You can crop the photo to include only your friends and thus effectively eliminate the unwanted object from the print.

When cropping photos always remember aspect-ratio – depending on the paper and the printer you’re using sometimes you’re limited to a certain photo size. For example if you print on a special 4X6 photo paper any source photo that is not in a 4X6 aspect ratio will have to be either stretched, cropped or parts of the print will be left blank. Make sure that you crop your photo to fit a specific aspect ratio if you’re printing on a specific aspect-ratio paper.

More photo processing can be done in order to enhance your prints. It can include red-eye removal (many software packages will do it for you automatically) contrast enhancement and more. For example if a portion of the photo that is important to you is a bit dark – you can “stretch” the color palette in a way that this section will look more lit and detailed. This will usually be on the expense of “overexposing” other portions of the photo that you care less about.

Always remember photo resolution: Every photo is built out of pixels. The more pixels in a photo the higher the photo resolution is. We will not get into details here about the correlation between mega pixels and print quality but a general rule of thumb is that to get good print quality you need 300 pixels per inch or more. This means for example that the biggest paper size a 2 mega pixels photo can be printed on is 4X6 while an 8 mega pixels photo can be printed on an 8X10.

Pick the right printer and paper: there are many different printing each with its advantages and disadvantages. They range in quality and cost. To get the best print quality you should use photo paper in conjunction with a printer that supports such paper. Photo paper and photo printers are more expensive than document oriented A4 Inkjet printers. Choose the printer by evaluating how many prints you will make and how important quality is to you. If you print occasionally for fun an Inkjet printer with normal or photo paper is probably good enough for you. If you print a lot and quality is very important photo paper with a photo printer is the way to go. As a rule of thumb glossy photo paper provides the best quality for color photo prints while matte photo paper provides the best quality for black and white prints.

Printer ink and maintenance: printers need to be setup and maintained. It is extremely important to follow the instructions and to use compatible ink cartridges. High quality compatible ink can make the difference between low and high quality prints. It is usually recommended to buy ink from the same brand as the printer. Some calibration is usually needed when replacing ink and sometimes every few months of use. Follow the instructions for such procedures carefully as a calibrated printer results in much better quality prints than a printer that is not aligned and is poorly maintained.

In conclusion it is very easy to print your photos at home. Just buying a mid-range printer and hitting the “Print” button in your photo viewing software will probably result in good prints that are satisfactory for most consumers. Following some simple tips can enhance those prints to professional quality. As technology advances and prices go down experimenting at home with various photo processing tools, paper sizes, paper types and inks becomes affordable and is probably the best way to find what combination yields the best print quality for you.

Ziv Haparnas is a technology veteran and writes about practical technology and science issues. This article can be reprinted and used as long as the resource box including the backlink is included. You can find more information about photo album printing and photography in general on http://www.printrates.com - a site dedicated to photo printing.

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Miss Domestic on February 17th, 2007 | File Under Photography | No Comments -

4 Portrait Photography Tips

By Kathy Burns-Millyard

Portrait photography is the art of taking pictures of people. Now whether you do this for family and friends, or just because you like people pictures, you may find these tips helpful in making your portrait photos more polished and professional looking.

1. Clear the clutter. When you take a person’s portrait, you want the picture to focus primarily on that person. If you have a lot of clutter behind or around them, it detracts from the person in the picture. So before you shoot, try moving the person to a place where there is little to nothing else around. The middle of a room is an easy option, as is having them stand against a blank wall.

2. Focus on their eyes. Regardless of what else might be in the picture, and regardless of whether anything else is in focus or not… if you have a person’s eyes in focus in a portrait photo, it always has much more impact and is considered a better picture overall. The old saying about eyes being a window to the soul actually applies in portrait photography, so if the person’s eyes are clear and focused well, the picture will look much better.

3. Try to blur the background. If you have a point and shoot camera, you probably have a control setting dial on the camera that will help with this. Turn the control dial to portrait mode - this is usually indicated by a small icon that looks like a person’s head. If you use a DSLR, or you shoot in manual or semi-manual mode with your camera, use a larger aperture setting. This is indicated by smaller numbers such as 5.6, 3.5 and 2.8. In fact, those three aperture settings are often the best ones to use when taking portrait photos, because those tend to blur the background best. A 2.8 aperture setting will give you a much more blurry background than 5.6 will, but 5.6 still does fairly nicely if the background is not too close to the person you’re taking a picture of.

4. Get Closer. Yes, closer to the person you’re taking a picture of. It’s ok to just have a picture of the person’s head and shoulders… it’s even ok to take a picture of just their face with part of the head missing. The face and eyes of a person is where most of their expression is, so leaving out most of the body in a portrait photograph will often produce much better results.

These four tips are great starting places for creating much stronger, more appealing portrait photos. So go out and try them yourself now, and you might be surprised at how much better your people pictures look.

© 2006, Kathy Burns-Millyard. For more hobby photography tips, advice and techniques, visit http://www.HobbyHour.com/Photography/ Also stop by SasEz.com to see some of Kathy’s recent stock and portrait photography.

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Miss Domestic on December 24th, 2006 | File Under Photography | No Comments -