I decided to take on the task of retouching a photograph of a person to get a feel for how magazines use this technique on models. Since I didn’t have a model on hand and no willing volunteers, I (somewhat unwillingly) subjected a photo of myself to undergo editing. Here are the steps I took to get the finished product: (also, you can click on all of these images to make them larger).
Original Photo
Then I adjusted the levels…this process was shown in my last post.
Next I used a combination of the healing brush, the clone tool, and the dodge tool to get rid of blemishes, dark areas, and the circles under my eyes:
Next I used the liquify filter to make my nose smaller and change my chin a little bit (this tool freaked me out, so it’s changes are slight–you can really change a lot with this tool though):
I then used the clone tool again to do some final smoothing of my skin and the dodge tool to lighten the shadows on my face:
Next, I changed the color of my eyes. However, in this photo my eyes look almost black (they’re brown), so it didn’t look right. I took out this effect in the final image. To change eye color create a new layer, make a selection of the iris of your eye, use the paint bucket tool to fill the color to whatever color you want your eye to be, then set that layers blending mode to hue–it should pick up the detail in your eye if it’s not dark like this picture:
Then I whitened my teeth and the whites of my eyes. To do this I first used the dodge tool–just click over the white areas and it will brighten (this gives a less dramatic effect). If your looking for something brighter, try the curves adjustment: Make a selection of your teeth, go to Image>Adjustments>Curves, and move the line until you get to the desired color–stay in the upper right hand corner for white!
My next change was adding make-up–this was fun! Create a new layer, change the blending mode to color, pick a brush size (use one with low hardness and lower the opacity for a blended look), choose your color, then just brush over your eyelids! Add some eyeliner–Use the eyedropper tool to choose the color of your eyelashes (that will now be the color of your brush). I lowered the opacity a good bit, so it didn’t look too harsh. And I added a bit of color to my cheeks, like blush.
Lastly, I used the clone tool to get rid of some of my frizzy hair. I just cloned the background colors. I couldn’t figure out a better way to do this…Wish I could have because it didn’t work out so well. So this is the final image after all my editing:
I think it will take more practice to really get the hang of this kind of editing…I look pretty fake in my opinion haha. It honestly scared me how much I was able to change my own image. Using Photoshop in this way has been rather controversial lately. This final image looks over-the-top perfect to me…I honestly prefer myself in the natural, blemished, frizzy image…Looking at myself in this final image is just weird. This exercise really has been eye-opening–it’s so easy to wish you looked a different way–this view of the “perfect” image presented to us by the media can skew the way we view ourselves so much, and it’s so easy to forget those media images aren’t real…they’ve been Photoshoped! So I guess my question is, is this type of Photoshop editing ethical? Should the media be able to manipulate images of people to make them look flawless?
madei levey arts 