Thread: Need PP help please

As I mentioned in another thread, I'm doing my first cake smash tomorrow. I ran out today and got a couple different colors of fleece and a piece of plexi. My problem is, I can't seem to get my white fleece to be WHITE without screwing everything up. I tried to get a few shots of my DD for practice, and used 3 different ways to PP it, and as you'll see, all three are different, and all three are not right. I use PSE 6, so I don't have curves. Would someone be willing to take me through step by step on how to PP these?
Thanks so much!

BTW, these are not great--toe chops, soft, etc.--I'll take my time tomorrow!

Here's SOOC if that helps. Thanks!

looks underexposed to me, are you shooting RAW? do you have a grey card that you could take a pic of?
eta: what were you settings?


(what size did you end up getting? I really must go get some I have 3 1yr shoots coming up)

No gray card. Shot in RAW.

All settings were 400-3.5-1/60. I used my speedlight.


For sake of money, I got a 32"x44". I don't shoot anyone but kids anyway, so I figured it would be fine. I ended up getting acrylic instead of true plexi. Cost me $20 something.

they do look a bit underexposed. try setting a custom white balance in camera by filling your frame with just the white background, you'll have to set you focus to manual focus.

I'll have to try out the custom white balance in the morning (although, not quite certain I know how to use a custom white balance, I usually leave it on auto). Would it have helped if I set the exposure compensation to +1, or bumped up my speedlight a bit?

I agree with it being underexposed. And something funky going on with her undershirt. Looks like there is a halo there.

This is my PP. I basically selectively brighten her up, by selecting her face and using curves. I did levels to bump the color. Then ran noiseware and did a little sharpening.

You are getting pinlights so try bouncing the flash in a different direction and that might give you more light. If it's still underexposed so ahead and crank the power up!

does the room you're using have any windows? Bounce the flash off it. I am still very new to my speedlight and have barely practiced at all this month but even when I tried in my very dark living room with one small window I was able to get good catchlights. I haven't learnt how to bounce of walls/ceilings yet and as long as there are windows around I probably won't

I say run out and grab a grey card before you start (they are cheap) then just take a pic of it and in ACR you'll use that for your wb

gl with the smash today

I can't bounce the flash behind me (unless I'm missing something), and that's where the window will be. Also, unfortunately no camera stores where I live whatsoever, so I can't run out and get a grey card. I'm going to attempt to set custom white balance...I'll take a few practice shots, and if that's not working, I'll be shooting with a light blue background instead. Thankfully, this is just a friend of mine with no expectations, so if I screw it up, I'll chalk it up to practice. If it wasn't completely gray and gloomy outside, I'd be able to shoot with natural light, but I'm not getting enough to get my SS up enough for an active 1 year old.
Anyone know about exposure compensation, and whether bumping that up on my camera will help, since it wants to turn my white blanket to gray?