The moment I saw this picture I knew it had untapped potential. Initially, I went a bit crazy with the editing and ended up with a picture so flawless I swear I could smell plastic. Gone was the chemistry between the girls. Gone was the emotion. Damn it, I thought.

A mongoose can defeat a cobra so all hope wasn’t gone. It was just back to the drawing board. “This photo is about friendship so we don’t want to see two mannequins”, I said out loud. I was alone so I felt like a crazy person. Anyway, what we want to see is some skin. Umm, skin texture, I mean. That did the trick for the most part but I also had to get rid of the flimsy-looking necklace, fix their deformed faces and emphasize their eyes, among other things. There was one dilemma, though. I had to debate with myself over hair extensions. I won. No extensions were needed.

By the way, is it just me or does the girl on the left have some Teri Hatcher going on?

Have a nice day,
Buikhu

Photo credit: Scott Snyder

P.S. Due to server updates, my blog has been down for the past few days but everything should be back to normal again.

Now, submit a photo.

We all have pictures that make you go “meh”. It’s usually the 107th picture of your cat or one of the several poses against a while wall. Then then are those outright bad and embarrassing shots you wish didn’t exist but, for some unexplainable reason, do. You were most likely either drunk or naked… and some bastard had a camera.

What should you do with those pictures, delete them? No. Even the worst photos, the kind that would cause exceptionally grave damage to national security if ever published, should be saved and kept in a government protected, top-secret chamber. I’m not talking about way out-of-focus and overexposed material, that stuff belongs in the trash. I mean pictures that are bad because you look ridiculous.

What’s the point, you ask. The answer is digital recycling. Even bad photos may have elements that could be reused.
I would normally show you a before picture here but this time I’ll show you the final creation first.

You wouldn’t believe what kind of garbage this consists of, so see for yourself, if you dare. Oh, and if anyone asks you about my laundry day picture, you never saw it.

Later,
Buikhu

Photo credits: Me, Meral Akbulut, Aneta Blaszczy

P.S. A more tightly cropped version of the final photo can be seen here. I couldn’t decide which one was better.
I know the tattoo still needs some work so I don’t need to hear that from you. Other comments are welcomed.

Your turn.

Let’s keep this short. This was my to-do list:

Teeth: whiten, straighten
Eyes: brighten, widen, sharpen
Eyebrows: lift
Nose, chin, jawline: reshape
Skin: smooth out imperfections, add a soft glow
Make-up: touch up, intensify
Lighting: Remove unwanted shadows, create a mood
Background: clean up, crop

Good grief! The subject must be a real monster.

Nasty! Luckily, the real picture is a lot better:

At this point, you should be thinking: “She doesn’t need that much retouching!” No, she doesn’t. Not if you want to make the kind of people who read Cosmopolitan puke. So, let’s see her after the the Photoshop magic:

That should be good enough even for the readers of Cosmo. Nah. “She’s totally ugly. Her skin has, like, pores and stuff. Eww!”

Until I post again,
Buikhu

Photo credit: Janet Goulden who did not submit this photo and who I hope doesn’t get offended by this.

P.S. Remember to submit your photo.

While waiting for your photo submissions, I enhanced a picture Cammy2005 posted of her niece Ella on the FIX MY PIC Flickr pool.

Here’s what the original looks like. Please click, don’t squint:

As you can see, it’s not that bad. It’s kind of nice actually. Yet there is something snapshottish about it.

I started by adjusting the colors. The bench is way too bright compared to her skin, which makes the whole picture a bit smudged. Bench saturation down, skin saturation up. It’s that easy.

Her skin is perfect already but it doesn’t glow. Whoever invented glowing skin should be crucified because skin doesn’t glow naturally. Ok, it does if you use special lighting but again, is that natural? Anyway, I gave in and made it glow.

Ella’s eyes are beautiful and big but they need something. Photoshop, please, make her eyes have that something! (Psst! It’s contrast.)

One of the things that separate snapshots from quality photography is distracting backgrounds. Thank Adobe we have the crop tool. Wow, much better already.

We’re almost there, just one more thing: focus. Some parts of the picture need to look extra crisp whereas other parts don’t need that much attention. Let’s sharpen here and blur there. Nice.

Here’s the final version, what do you think? Please click, don’t squint:

Do you have a picture that needs retouching or restoring but you lack the skills, time or software to do it yourself? Maybe you want to lose a few pounds, swim in turquoise water, vanquish street bums, say hi to perfect skin or say bye to bad-hair-life. Maybe you just need to repair a damaged photo or colorize a black and white picture. The bad news is that professional photo retouching can be costly. The good news is that it can also be free if you send your picture to me (rhyme not intended).

The catch

The only catch is that you will have to let me post your photo, (the before and the after), on my blog and include it in my portfolio. You get to keep the copyright.

Why it’s free

I need Photoshop skills in my job. I have seven years of digital photo enhancing experience but unfortunately, I don’t currently get to do it often enough. I don’t want to get rusty so I need to practice. This seems like a nice way to do so. Also, I just recently started this blog but after only three posts, I noticed I’m all over the place. I need something consistent. My Flickr feed is shamefully skimpy, too, because I got tired of uploading my own face.

How it works

Email me a picture using the photo submission form. I will send it back to you and post it here once it’s been retouched.

Here’s a quick example of image restoration and colorization.
Please click, don’t squint: