Oh, Baby

It was my absolute joy to photograph this beautiful baby last week! It was equally fun to edit them on the new software Casey bought me :)

This was my first ever baby shoot, so I was glad it was at my house, with a friend, so I could take my time. It also helped that this baby is the happiest baby I've ever seen. Also, she's five months, not newborn, which is probably easier too.

Here are my favorites:

 These were her great-grandma's pearls :)

 My favorite:

So, awhile ago I was talking about the free trial of Photoshop Lightroom that I was thinking about buying. I never did. It's just too labor intensive and SO hard to figure out. (And expensive). Even the simple things, I kept having to look up online. I don't doubt that I could have learned it, but I just wasn't excited about taking the time to do so. It was more than I needed Secret: I really don't like the over-edited look that I see a lot of around the web. I want my family to look like my family in our pictures, ya know? Anyone else feel that way? I don't like to see a great photo, but know that those eyes or that too-creamy-to-be-real skin were definitely "photo-shopped". Let's be real, people.

So anyway, I've been researching other options because I have just simply outgrown iPhoto. I decided on Apple's Aperture because I have never had any problems with any other Apple software. We are Mac people all the way. I love the ease of use, the click and drag anything and everything and as a visual person, I think Apple designs for visual people. Not spreadsheet people, which might be who Photoshop designs for, ha!

Aperture uses my iPhoto library. No importing or reorganizing necessary. It's awesome!!! I still have some learning I want to do, but I was able to jump in and play with these photos with zero prior knowledge of the program. You can save a set of edits as a preset to apply to other photos or upload presets, just like in Photoshop, but it's made simple. (It took me an hour playing with Photoshop to figure that out). With Photoshop, I even had to google "how to get photos off of Photoshop" because I could not get them back into iPhoto full-size! I never did figure it out. I could only transfer them to a hard drive, which I then had to plug in every time I wanted to blog. Grrr!

Needless to say, I am thrilled. I had told Casey I'd decided what I wanted and told him all about it. Then I went out that night and when I got back, he'd bought it and installed it. What a guy!! (It helped my case that it's only $80, half the cost of Lightroom).