  We applied the extinction-disk-principal vectors approach to near infrared
photometric data of the Taurus-Auriga region and Orion Nebula young stellar
clusters. By assuming that the cluster age is represented by the median value
of the age distribution we are able to derive the distribution of stellar
masses. We showed that the resulting initial mass function (IMF) for these two
young stellar clusters compares remarkably well and might be a robust
representation of the IMF obtained by spectroscopic or photometric methods. The
method also yields extinction and disk contribution for each star. The overall
extinction distribution for the Orion cluster is analyzed and compares well
with previous work. The frequency of T Tauri stars with disks is dominant.
