The power of Photoshop

[Paul]

I was quite amazed at the extent of airbrushing in some pictures, check this out.

http://homepage.mac.com/gapodaca/digital/bikini/
http://homepage.mac.com/gapodaca/digital/blonde/index.html

[Nnnnsic]

Honestly, I think it's quite scary.

[SoCal Steve]

Paul - We've come to expect perfect models and It obviously can get pretty ridiculous at times, but when you need them, a lot of the techniques are not extremely difficult to do when taken one step at a time and used in moderation.

There is an excellent book, "Adobe Photoshop CS - The Art of Photographing Women" by Photographer Kevin Ames, that tells exactly how to do all of it, retouching, body shaping, etc., even including a step by step tutorial of turning a model's picture into a perfect match to a Barbie doll. It's really a good book that teaches much more than the title would imply.

[Geoff]

This is indeed scary - nothing wrong with how the model looked prior to the PS manipulation! Interesting link tho thanx Steve.

[MattC]

Strange world we live in where the ideal women is the result of extensive reworking in PS. It is no small wonder that there are so many problems amongst young women who are not happy with the way they look. They are trying to acheive the impossible.

Cheers

Matt

[SoCal Steve]

Sometimes I find myself wishing I could apply the healing brush to real objects, like car door dings. Is it just me?

[joolz]

I must agree with Steve's recommendation of the Kevin Ames book.
However, it is a reasonably advanced PS book - not really aimed at beginners.
Another good resource for PS Adepts would be Katrin Eismann's books Restoration & Retouching and Masking and Compositing.
Highly recommended if you spend a large amount of time in front of PS.

Joolz

[Hendrix]

Paul, thanks for the link, there a other retouching examples on that site, he's very good at it indeed

[kipper]

I used to talk to guys on irc who used to do work like this, they even were capable of doing airbrushed airtwork that looked like photos. Think they ended up working for companies like eidos working on tomb raider

[tsanglabs]

Honestly, I think it's quite scary.

I'll second that . When I rolled my mouse over I freaked out! I never realised that they did so much work. I will never look at a mag cover photo the same again.

[kipper]

tsang, did you see the before and after shots of Nikki Websters FHM photoshoot. You'd be suprised how good she looks after a bit of airbrush

[Killakoala]

She was still ugly after the touch-up. Goes to show PS can't achieve miracles.

[marcus]

Crazy stuff Paul....that is quite amazing (also bizarr) Great post.

[NetMagi]

Sometimes I find myself wishing I could apply the healing brush to real objects, like car door dings. Is it just me?

Nah once back in 96 or so, i wrecked the front passenger side of my car.

My friend and I (both comp geeks) stood staring at the front end in his garage. At nearly the same time, while motioning towards the intact driver's side, we turned to eachother and said,"copy, paste, flip-horizontal".



Of course, in reality we had another beer and got the duct tape out. . . but hey would could dream

[SoCal Steve]

Sometimes I find myself wishing I could apply the healing brush to real objects, like car door dings. Is it just me?

Nah once back in 96 or so, i wrecked the front passenger side of my car.

My friend and I (both comp geeks) stood staring at the front end in his garage. At nearly the same time, while motioning towards the intact driver's side, we turned to eachother and said,"copy, paste, flip-horizontal".



Of course, in reality we had another beer and got the duct tape out. . . but hey would could dream

[SoCal Steve]

Sometimes I find myself wishing I could apply the healing brush to real objects, like car door dings. Is it just me?

Nah once back in 96 or so, i wrecked the front passenger side of my car.
My friend and I (both comp geeks) stood staring at the front end in his garage. At nearly the same time, while motioning towards the intact driver's side, we turned to eachother and said,"copy, paste, flip-horizontal".

So, all three of us are crazy, then. But at least I'm not alone. Thanks for giving me that bit of comfort.

[PlatinumWeaver]

Does anyone know of an E-book covering techniques like this?

I agree that it is disturbing how much work was done on that photo, but I shot a party this weekend and a great many people ended up rosy-cheeked from the combination of the cold melbourne weather and the gas-heater.

I would like to be able to minimise that sort of feature, without totally altering the subject's face.

So.. any ideas? or should I just spend the $20US and get that first book from amazon?

[kipper]

I think you should look at the various brushes under the Healing Brush drop down/roll out. There are some there that only affect various things (such as color, luminosity etc) but retain the shape of the picture.