Christmas photos of babies!

[Chub Chub]

I have done quite a lot of photography. So I received an email from a girlfriend who wants me to take some pics of her bub for christmas cards. This is great, I love candid pics and I am quite good at this style if I do say so myself, but I think she wants formal "Christmassy" photos of him with the Santa hat. :xmas: I am stumped for ideas of props etc for this style of shot.

Has anyone had Christmas photos of their bub they want to share that I can get inspiration from?

Thanks
Sara

[melbryan]

I have done a few last year I put mousse antlers on my 1 yr old and dressed him in a santa suit for the 2 dollar shop. I have wrapped them in tinsel and them done in black and white and only the santa hats are coloured.

[Chub Chub]

I like the idea of just the santa hat in colour! You do that in PhotoShop somehow, yes???

[Leeny]

Photoshop is best...In you search yahoo for a "selective colouring" tutorial, it'll give you step by step instructions with pictures. Theres quite a few ways to do it, but if you cant find one, let me know :)

[2 Cherubs]

Oooooo I may be able to help with this...
I had someone from a scrapbooking site send me a step by step email explaining it...This is to use with Paintshop...
Good Luck..

Here's a picture I have done, Its not to clear, its photo of a page I have done in James' scrapbooking album.
You can see how the picture is black and white and I have coloured just certain areas in..
http://i67.photobucket.com/albums/h311/mum2jamesdaniel/James1086.jpg

Hope this helps
GoodLuck!

* Open picture

* Right click on the top bar of the frame picture and select copy. Then paste as new image. You now have 2 copies of the photo.

* Click on top photo and change to grey scale through the colour menu at the top.

* Then right click on the top bar of the photo and select copy.

* Click on the top bar of the back colour photo now and select past as new layer.

* Close the other photo, you no longer need this one.

* If you look at the layer pallet tool bar you will notice two layers in there now.

* Now select the erase tool from the left hand tool bar. Check your tool options window after you have selected the erase tool. Setting should be about size – you can change this as you go, start at about 30. Hardness – 100. Opacity – 100. Step – 1. Density – 100.
(These are the setting I use and it seems to work quite well. The size can be changed depending on if you are doing fine detail or not)

* Now carefully erase the parts that you want to be colour. You are erasing the black and white layer so that the colour shows through.

* You can make the image as big as you like just by placing your mouse curser on the photo and scrolling up or down with your mouse scroll wheel. It makes it easier to erase detail if the image is larger.

* Then just save the image and it should be all finished!

NOTES: The layer pallet window and the toolbar options window can be found along the second row at the top (under file, edit, view, image etc.) Layer pallet is the blue and red square overlapping each other, and tool options is the little blue rectangle with a couple of little lines in it. If you click those it will make the windows pop up.

[Chub Chub]

Oh you gals are GOOD!

I am going to go to my mums print out your instructions and play.......THanks! I have PhotoShop so I hope the steps will be similar.

I'll let you know how I go! And my Christmas present to myself is to book into a Photoshop course.:tree:

If any one else has any other photos I would love to see them.

Thanks

[Shanaynay]

Hi Chub Chub,
For my DD's first Christmas I did some shots of her in a red suit, wearing a Santa hat :xmas: sitting down in front of the Xmas tree, :tree: made sure there were some good decorations around her shoulders etc....