Welcome Baby Derek! {And PicMonkey Mini-Tutorial}

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.

Photo Editing Steps

1} Upload photo & crop if needed.

2} In “Basic Edits” {the cropping box} click on “Colors” and then on “Neutral Picker”. Use the eye dropper 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}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}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 so it just fits in the whites of the eyes and slide the fade bar to 70%-75%. Now 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 you photo and you’re done! 🙂

Easy-peasy, right? 🙂

Tomorrow I’ll walk you through how I made the adorable Birth Announcement below in PicMonkey (it saved me a ton of money by making my own!).

 

I’m linking this post up at:

Menu Plan Monday , Skip to My Lou, Sumo’s Sweet Stuff, Show & Tell, Lil’ Luna, Live, Laugh, Rowe, Somewhat Simple, Tidy Mom, 504 Main, The Best Blog Recipes, WhipperBerry, All Our Days, Tatertots and Jell-O, Lolly Jane, I Heart Naptime, Flamingo Toes, Uncommon Designs, The 36th Avenue, Funky Junk Interiors, Sugar Bee Crafts, Someday Crafts, A Glimpse Inside