Welcome Baby Derek! Plus a PicMonkey Mini-Tutorial

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I am thrilled to share my son’s birth plus a PicMonkey Mini-Tutorial on how to edit photos easily with PicMonkey. 

Last week I announced the {early} arrival of our newest little one via Facebook.

We were so surprised and definitely not ready for his 17-day early arrival! When my water broke, I was a little frantic on the phone with my hubby because:

1. I have C-sections, and I was not mentally prepared yet for the surgery and recovery process.
2. My mom wasn’t in town yet, so I needed to find last-minute child care for my toddler {. Luckily, we’ve made some pretty awesome friends in the 4 months we’ve lived in Southern California}.
3. We hadn’t settled on a baby name yet, and his temporary name was still “Mango” {my 3-year-old picked that one out}.
4. Our bag for the hospital wasn’t packed yet {amazingly, I packed that sucker in 20 minutes and only forgot snacks for my hubby}.

My water broke at 5:00 PM, and our little cutie was born shortly after 8:00 PM. Once I had this little angel in my arms, nothing else mattered.

Once we got home from the hospital, I got right to work on taking newborn photos of this little cutie. I am by no means a professional photographer, but I think they came out pretty darn cute thanks to the awesome editing features of PicMonkey.

Like I said above, I am not a pro at photography or editing photos, but here’s what I did in PicMonkey to achieve the picture quality above.

PicMonkey Mini-Tutorial

1. Upload photo & crop if needed.
2. Next, in “Basic Edits” {the cropping box} click on “Colors” and then on “Neutral Picker.” Use the eyedropper to touch something in the photo that should be white and click “Apply.” {This is a quick cheat to even out the white balance of your photo.}
3. In “Basic Edits” {the cropping box} click on “Exposure” and adjust your Brightness {I suggest no more than 10} and Highlights {I suggest no more than 10%-15%} and click “Apply.”
4. Then, in “Effects” {the magic wand} click on “Boost” and set the bar to no more than 10%, and click “Apply.”
5. Go back to “Basic Edits” {the cropping box} and click on “Colors.” Slide the Saturation bar to somewhere between 5-10 and click on “Apply.”
6. Go to “Effects” {the magic wand} and click on “Tranquil” and set the bar to somewhere between 50%-60%, and click on “Apply.”
7. Then, go to “Touch Up” {the tube of lipstick} and click on “Eye Brighten” {you may need to zoom in for this one}. Adjust your brush size to fit into the whites of the eyes and slide the fade bar to 70%-75%. Using your mouse, place the circle over one eye, and while holding down the mouse, move the circle over the whites of the eyes. Repeat with the other eye.
8. Save your photo, and you’re done! 
9. Easy-peasy, right?