The power of photoshop - before and after!

I'm one of those people that are really picky about the photos of me that go up online, yes I am slightly vain, but hey - at least I admit it :) Ok maybe a bit more than slightly vain. Anywhoo the secret to all this is PHOTOSHOP!!!

Obsessed with it since high school

I think my obsession with photoshopping photo's started back in high school when we first discovered "dream photos" which is a photo you take at a korean store and then they photoshop the crap out of you until your are unrecognisable but damn hot. Well hot in asian standards like pasty skin, big black eyes no nose and a small mouth. Something like that. I remember one of them turned out so good I scanned it in and sent to all the unsuspecting boys online. I got a lot of fans from the photo, even to the point where a random guy would send back a photo of me and ask if it was me. Thank goodness I never met any of them in real life :P. If they did well, sucked in :P

What you should fix on your face

Anywho, over the years I kinda just got better at photoshop. I started off making blurry photos using the dodge, burn and blur tools. I thought blurring was the only way to make your skin look nicer. I don't have any of my old photos but I probably would have laughed at how stupid I looked. Fast forward, I actually photoshop my photos less than I did before, well it just looks more natural. The things I would focus on is:

Eyebags - omg they make you look disgusting and since I never get any sleep these are almost a permanat thing :P Photoshop does wonders for eyebags!

Overshadowed parts of your face - unfortunately, we don't have permanent photography lights shining on us all the time so sometimes the lights just make your face look uneven. This is an easy fix if the lighting isn't TOO bad. Man I wish I had real life photoshop :D

Dry lips - I'm guilty as charged for not always wearing lip balm, in fact I think my boyfriend puts it on more often than I do and I love picking at my lips. This means bad news for my lips in photos. But thank goodness for the airbrush tool :)

Anything you think is too fat - There are proper ways of un-fattening yourself and I'm not an expert so I just use the smudge tool. Can de-fatten parts of your body including face, waist arms and legs if the photo permits. Beats going on a diet :)

Those are the basic things you can photoshop out to look like an above average human being. It's the equivalent of sleeping 8 hours a day, eating healthy food, wearing moisturiser and lip balm and being able to find places where flattering lighting exists. Well I could do all that or I can live my life online and depend on photoshop :)

There are a few extra things you can do with photoshop - like put on more make up. In my example I put on falsies and some eyeliner and lip tint. All without putting more crap on my lazy face. BONUS!! Girls throw out your make up drawers :) You just need to d/l a few custom brushes!!

OMG I look like a transvestite!!

So for those of you not familiar with photoshop I'm probably not making a whole lot of sense right now but I promise to do a tutorial sometime. I actually started working on one and realised 3/4 of a way through that I looked like a transvestite, so I decided to cut my losses and do a quick one for now and do the tutorial later. I am NOT posting up my transvestite like photo ew. I must remind you I am NOT a professional and if my techniques end up making you look like a tranny - I apologise for scarring you, but I think I know why that happened now so....trust me :)

Now for the reveal!

Ok so here is proof that photoshop is awesome!!! I turned a really shitty picture (I took it with an slr on a setting that I had no idea on - boyfriend was out, in front of a random wall with really bad yellow lighting) with very little make up on (just some eyeliner because that's hard to replicate and I couldn't find my make up bag) into something half decent! Oh right I forgot to say, have decent hair, because that's pretty hard to change.

Dark circles? check Bad lighting? check Flaky lips? eww yes check! Really badly applied makeup? check!

Colors are so much nicer, and I have really nice eyelashes that I painted on :)!!! Beautiful eyelashes? check. Pouty lips? check! Thinner nose? check! Nice skin with no eyebags? check!

This overall is a pretty rough job, I'd say about 10 minutes worth, but it's enough to be decent so I'm happy with it! There's something therapeutic about working on photoshop :) Now that most of my wireframes for DapperLook is complete I wanted to play on it some more.


Well there you go :) I'll probably do a tutorial sometime if you guys wanna learn. Time to play some diablo :)


Thanks for reading <3