Relaxing with the animals

I am pretty new at digital photography. My current camera seems

pretty limited in controls, but I have been happy with my shots in

natural light.

Using PhotoShop. Duplicate the original layer. Select the duplicate layer and change blending mode to screen, adjust opacity to suit.

did the camera come up with this picture when using a flash? if so ... get a bigger flash ... turn on lights ... if you didn't want to wake up the baby ... open up the exposure as much as you can ... increase ISO, aperture. I would not recommend increasing exposure time since the picture has already captured some camera movement, unless you are going to use a tripod. not knowing what camera model you have i will assume you could get a better one marginally increasing the expense.

You can't use direct on-camera flash because of the mirror. You could use a flash mounted well above the camera and firing into a bounce reflector like an Omni Bounce. As someone else noted, the best solution would probably be a tripod and a longer shutter speed. It's probably about two stops underexposed as presented. You can also make this exposure look better in PhotoShop. The Shadows/Highlights tool followed by some levels adjustment would help a lot. If you're shooting RAW, you can brighten up the midrange during conversion without affecting the highlights.