Thanks about Isla! I’m smitten, in case anyone can’t tell, so I’m pretty biased…

I’m happy to share! There are lots of ways you can manipulate a photo in post production to achieve a completely different tone than what was shot but… who has time?! Especially over some mum mums?!

There are two ways I like to guide the colour and tone of a photo quickly and easily, when I’m not up for investing oodles of time. Settle in and fair warning; there are quite a few examples. 

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One of the easiest ways to cast alternate tones on your photos with a DSLR is by addressing the white balance setting. White balance is as it sounds, and its job is to find the most basic and true grey in a photo so the camera knows how to capture the remaining colours.

Moms, remember those make-up mirrors that plugged in? The ones with lights on both sides and you could change the light settings between daytime, office lights, nighttime, etc.? Similar concept. A camera can have the exact same settings, and yet a photo will look completely different if one moment it’s bright and sunny and the next its overcast and raining. 

What do I do? I mostly shoot in RAW because I have the software to process it quickly on my desktop, and keep the camera in ‘auto’ white balance. I can then alter the white balance in post-production using Lightroom. But that’s just my habit; you can also control these white balance settings on your camera. Just remember to change them every time the environmental light changes! 

These are all the same image: 1/125 @ f/3.5, ISO 400, Auto WB. 

Still with me?! 

Two quick things: Lightroom’s ‘auto’ white balance is separate to that of your camera. And ‘flash’ white balance isn’t reliant on a flash actually firing. No flash was used for this photo, just the light from the living room window. 

As you can see, this slight adjustment makes the world of difference. As always, I encourage you to play around with your own DSLR in your prime environments. You’ll start to know what setting you love for use in your home or favourite park at a certain time of day. I just can’t emphasize enough that, if you go off ‘auto’, remember to change it for a new environment! You don’t want tungsten on while you’re at the park on a nice day, and so on. 

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Now, layers. Who’s still here?!

For colour casting, I sometimes do tinted layers in Photoshop (any version). This is another quick n’ easy way to alter the tone of a photo without too much of a time investment. I create a new layer, and use the paint bucket to fill in usually a pale yellow, pale pink or pale peach colour before playing with the opacity and merging.

Huh-wha? I know. But it’s really easy, once you’ve done it a few times.

Go to Layers, New. Then select your paint bucket and fill in a colour. Yellow? Start with #F9E98C. Pink? Try #E68A73. For a neutral blend, you can experiment with #F6D986.

These aren’t hard and fast recipes so definitely experiment, and sometimes I mix them up by using a few tints (see below), straying from these colour codes and changing opacities of the tints (start with 25% and go from there). Another way to subtly change the image is to change the way the layers step onto each other from the drop-down menu in your layers window. Since these are all built on top of the original, you can see here how ‘colour burn’ is much sharper and deeper than ‘soft light’, and so on. It’s all a matter of taste. 

Yay Georgina! I hope you’re having fun!

The 18-200mm is a killer all-in-one lens for travel and other general merriment, so I definitely back that purchase above your kit lens. It’s incredibly flexible. 

Two things I can think of, and only one requires shopping:

If your aperture won’t go as low as you like, you can try to trick it by reconfiguring the depth of field by creating a bigger gap between the subject and the background just by moving them towards you a bit. 

For crispness on a moving, living and breathing subject, make sure your focus locks on the most important part (usually, the eyes). Try a faster shutter speed but flick on every light if you have to to balance exposure. Cannot stress the importance of light enough on this.

You’ll have to go into manual mode completely and play around with it for what works in your home, etc. as shutter priority and aperture priority aren’t going to compensate for the speed and/or bokeh you want; the camera will just go for the obvious. For example, in Av mode, the camera could opt for a shutter speed lower than 1/100 which is going to cause blur unless the baby is sleeping. Even then, you can’t be shaky and as steady as we all think we are… Maybe pop the camera on a table top or stack of books if pulling out a tripod seems over the top for this! 

Av • 1/30 @ f/3.5, ISO 400

Av • 1/30 @ f/3.5, ISO 400 w/ another lamp turned on and auto focus locked.

Manual • 1/250 @ f/3.5, ISO 400. But Jimmy Fallon was on Sesame Street.

As for the second option — the one that involves shopping — I’m smitten with the potential in a 50mm for babies and kids and Canon’s 1.8 lens doesn’t get much better for about $140 CAD. You *can* go up to the 1.4 ($480 CAD) but really, it’s not necessary for what we’re gabbing about here on this blog. I use the 1.8 for my business and have nothing but positive things to say, so for that price… Here are some examples. 

Manual • 1/125 @ f/2.8, ISO 400. Everything that is on the same plane is in focus, and everything behind is blurry. Even because her head was tilted, one eye is out of focus, one isn’t. 

Av • 1/100 @ f/2, ISO 400. Again, with the shirt closest to the lens, it’s more in focus. Even with her head being ever so slightly forward, it’s now entering the bokeh zone. 

Maybe consider the 50mm as your next camera-related purchase but in the meantime, have fun with 3.5. Charlotte’s too darling to not take a gazillion pictures of everyday so talk about a great excuse! Hope that helps!