I'm so glad that my husband loves me for who I am. Truly, I am grateful. I love that he doesn't mind my freckles and persistently rosy cheeks, the pores on my nose that are so big you could serve soup from them and those pesky brown spots cropping up all over (thanks to those teenage years when I'd baste myself like a chicken in Johnson & Johnson baby oil and lie out in the sun
all weekend long). Case in point, this is one of Matt's favorite photos from our honeymoon back in March:
Ok, so maybe it's cute that I'm cheesily looking off to the side and the smile is nice, I'll grant myself that. But look at those freckles! Look at the beads of sweat (ah, humidity)! Look at those brown spots mimicking a map of North America on my forehead! Seriously, people, before you send me comments accusing me of exaggerating and telling me how great you think my skin looks, lay your eyes on this unholy sight:
I'm a dermatological nightmare, I tell you. So flash forward to a couple of weeks ago when my dear friend Kelly turned me on to
Confessions of a Pioneer Woman. Oh, how I love Ree's daily posts, her scrumptious recipes (in fact I just made her
lasagna last night, and it was YUM), her stories about her kids and husband (mmm, Marlboro Man), and most of all her stunning photographs taken around their ranch. She also frequently puts up posts on how much she loves Photoshop and gives mini lessons on how she enhances her photos with it. She uses the big fancy version, of course, but she also mentioned that the more basic version--
Adobe Photoshop Elements--is all the average girl needs if what she wants is some basic tools for making her photos look their best. Sounds like me! So today I bought it along with a
book to help me learn all the tricks and tools. About an hour ago I sat down at the computer with this book in hand and started playing around with Elements, and friends I have to ask you to hold me accountable with this because I have discovered a new obsession, an addiction if you will. Check this out, ladies. This is my first try at tweaking a photo:
Now granted, I look like a high school senior portrait, all glowy and overly "soft." But come on! Are you amazed, or what?!? I am determined to figure out how to make these changes subtly enough that they look completely natural, and pretty soon you'll all be begging me to nice-up your family pics! Here you are with a side-by-side before and after.
5 comments:
HOLY MOLY! I like the freckles, don't get me wrong. AND your rosy cheeks. They're cute. But its amazing how PERFECT your skin looks in the photoshopped picture. And your teeth look like an advertisement for Brite Smile or something.
No wonder PW's kids look like little angels...Have you learned how to photoshop a new figure on my full-body shots yet? ;-)
Isn't it...shocking?? And this was just my first try, mind you. Even just making one simple change of color correcting the skin tone made a big difference--I suddenly was less pasty white and had some actual healthy color going on. And the intensity of the greens in the foliage was really improved. So I was impressed enough by that, but then kept going obviously.... I no longer feel bad that Pioneer Woman's children glow like little angels. Now my future offspring will, too, darn it! I haven't yet tried out any of the slimming tips, but I'll get right on it. :)
Congrats on your newly acquired skill. The only down side is that you are going to look at yourself in a few years and not remember that these were photo-shopped (because you no longer have time to PS photos) and wonder how it is that you've 'suddenly aged and gone downhill so quickly (pores, freckles, etc.). This happened to Mike and I recently as we've been looking at pics from 3 years ago when I first got into using PS. Granted, we have, indeed aged. But I'm telling you: it's like wearing makeup. Once you start, you can never stop again. Or if you do, you'll have warped ideas about your former days.
P.S. Be careful with the slimming effects. A former client of mine, who shall remain nameless, used this for her corporate pic and became a laughing stock. It's not very discrete. Will post a pic to illustrate, on my blog.
Hahaha! Can't wait to see that. I haven't tried to use it yet, and I wouldn't use it extensively on myself or anyone else anyway. Nor would I airbrush the heck out of everyone in everything. My intent is to use it to enhance little things, correct colors, erase power lines, etc., and do neat little affects like I've done on later posts with pics of Jacob and Elaine.
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