Family and Children Portraiture

Out of all the photos you take as a portrait professional, chances are that the ones you take of Families and children are the ones that will be the most treasured, most displayed, most passed around. So, how do you make the photos as priceless as the kids they're of? If your photos need some retouching, our highly trained photo enhancement artists can digitally:

1. Perform color correction
2. Even skin tone
3. Hide or correct blemishes, bumps and bruises, stray hair
4. Remove stains or wrinkles in clothes
5. Add text or enlarge a photo to create a birth announcement or card

Parents and grandparents want a few things from a good photo of their young ones: 1) To show off how beautiful and precious the child is, and 2) capture the personality of the child.

A great family or child portrait is one that will last a lifetime, and will often be referred to again and again. Let Photofix make your portraits as special and memorable to your clients as the person and the moment it captures.

Child Photo Tips

Cleanliness is next to godliness. If you're taking a more formal portrait instead of something candid, ask the client to have the child cleaned up, hair combed, and in clean, unwrinkled clothes. Otherwise, just have fun and any wrinkles, dirt or stains can come out later with help from Photofix!

How Photofix can help: If the little munchkins are adorable but their clothes are dirty, let us do the virtual laundry and no one will be the wiser. Don't let a distracting stain or smudge take away from the focus on your subjects.

Be ready to run. Kids don't like sitting still, especially for photos. If they won't pose, don't make them; take candid shots instead. Take photos of them in their natural environment: running, playing, swinging in the park. Spontaneity makes for great, timeless photos that capture a subject's true personality.

How Photofix can help: Candid shots may mean you don't have as much time for changing camera settings, or you may not know how a photo will turn out until after the fact. No problem. Photofix can correct many problem images for things like color correction, red eye, focus problems and reframing for better composition and image balance. Have fun and let us worry about enhancing the photos!

The eyes have it. Focus on the eyes, and get on eye-level to take your photos. Eyes are the most expressive part of the face, and we naturally gravitate to looking at the eyes, so keep them in focus and get close enough to the face to get some real detail. You need not fill the frame with the child's face (unless you're trying for that effect), but do remember that detail is more memorable than a small kid in a big empty background. Baby photos, too, can be especially effective if you're on the same level; lay down on your belly on the carpet and get some crawling action shots!

How Photofix can help: If you need to crop the photos to bring the face into focus, or perhaps you'd like to resize or enlarge the image to get more detail overall, we can help. We can also brighten eyes and intensify the colors in a photo to create vibrant, lively photos of the child.

Get out of the toy room. For more portrait-like images, remember that the selection of background is important. Try and avoid the clutter of a room with a lot of things in it. Choose emptier spaces, like backyards, bigger rooms, or against a sofa or wall. This will help keep the focus on your baby or child, and will keep visual clutter to a minimum, making for a more striking and elegant photo.

How Photofix can help: We can remove unwanted items from the background of a photo, or remove the background entirely and place the child in an entirely new background. We can also change the colors in a room or of the child's clothes, or intensify the existing colors for a more vibrant picture.

Sweetness and light. The child may be adorable, but if the lighting is poor, the photo may not come out to your liking. Try for even, soft, but adequate light, and avoid overhead lamps or outdoor photos when the sun is high in the sky. Soft lighting will prevent harsh shadows or a washout of features and detail, and will create the most flattering picture possible.

How Photofix can help: Lighting isn't always up to you, so if you have a great shot that would be improved by correcting the lighting or rebalancing the contrast between light and dark, send it our way. We can also remove some shadows and sharpen the detail on overexposed images.

Your clients will treasure these photos for a lifetime. Shouldn't they be as proud of your photos as they are of their children? We're here and eager to help make each of your photos flawless. Thanks for using Photofix!