Believe none of what you see

Posted by Christopher S Penn on Dec 6, 2011 in Awakening, Photography, Photoshop fun | 0 comments

Much has been made of various attempts at illustrating how distorted our sense of self-image is (especially for women’s self-image) by the trade media using programs like Photoshop. However, if you truly want to blow up someone’s preconceptions about how manipulated everything is, there’s no better way to do it than to do it yourself.

If you have Photoshop or access to it, fire it up and pick a good image of yourself. Like most things, the better the source image (from a technical perspective), the easier it is to manipulate. For fun, we’ll use author Julien Smith’s photo that I shot at Podcasters Across Borders. I want to emphasize that I am not a Photoshop professional. I’m at best an amateur who can Google and follow directions. Everything we do in this little example is something you can do with almost no training besides learning where the individual menu items are.

The authentic Julien Smith

To start, hit three buttons: Auto Tone, Auto Contrast, Auto Color. This will fix up 90% of photographs. Remember that at any time, you can hit undo if a change isn’t quite as good as you’d hoped.

Next, hit up the spot healing brush tool and click on any blemishes or skin imperfections. With just one tool, you can change someone’s appearance fairly drastically, if subtly.

Julien minus minor imperfections

Next, let’s make him clean shaven. We’ll hit up the Dust & Scratches box and simply melt them away by making 2 layers and “painting” over his stubble with the blurred layer.

Julien minus stubble

Now let’s get into some truly warped things. We’ll apply puppet warp to his face, pin down all the sections we don’t want to move, and adjust his jawline. This step is so easy that a six year old can do it.

Bone warp!

So in just a few clicks, we’ve altered reality significantly enough that the photo of Julien is no longer an accurate representation of that moment or of him generally. Doing bone warps changes the actual geometry of his bone structure, something that only drastic surgery could do.

The enhanced Julien Smith

Want to empower someone – including yourself – to understand how absolutely false our perceptions of body image are? Learn these simple tricks in Photoshop, try them out if you can, and then any time you see a photo of someone, look carefully at it. Ask yourself which of these techniques were used (I guarantee at least one, if not more, in every media publication), and realize that pretty much everything you see on the cover of a magazine is fake and has been manipulated.

Even better, teach your kids how to do this and then make a game of spotting the tricks when they see photos of celebrities and other pop culture icons. The secret of this is the same as a stage magician: once you learn how the trick is done and can do it yourself, it loses all of its power over you. You realize it’s just a cheap parlor trick, some digital sleight of hand, so simple that you and your kids can do it. That realization shatters the perception of perfection that the media outlets and appearance-based industries desperately want you to buy into.

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Photo Friday: New York City HDR

Posted by Christopher S Penn on Jun 11, 2010 in Photography, Photoshop fun | 5 comments

As much as some of my friends who are professional photographers dislike HDR as a gimmick, it’s a fun gimmick, so I do it when I can and when I see the opportunity.

Click for a larger version

This is one of my favorite shots of New York City in HDR, not just because it’s dramatic and stormy, but because of the subject matter and timing. If you’re not familiar with New York City, this is one of the major banks that got hit hard in the financial crisis. The photo was taken a little more than a year ago when the market was in flames, so the appearance of HDR-enhanced doom and gloom over a well known financial institution was quite apropos.

Have a great photo Friday!

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10 free iPad Wallpapers

Posted by Christopher S Penn on May 31, 2010 in Photography, Photoshop fun | 3 comments

10 free iPad Wallpapers

Got one of the two million new iPads out in the wild? Grab yourself one (or all) of these free wallpapers derived from photos I’ve taken over the years. iPad wallpapers are 1024×1024 pixels (square to adapt for rotation). Click on any image to get the various versions and choose full size for the iPad specific image. If you’re on an iPad, just tap and hold for a Save Image box.

Enjoy, and if you like them, please throw a link back to this blog post.

iPad Wallpaper: Autumn

iPad Wallpaper: Billiards

iPad Wallpaper: Bird in flight

iPad Wallpaper: Patriotism

iPad Wallpaper: Violins

iPad Wallpaper: Hibiscus

iPad Wallpaper: Chris Brogan

iPad Wallpaper: Day lily

iPad Wallpaper: Rose

iPad Wallpaper: Otters

My images are released under the Creative Commons By Attribution, Non-Commercial, Sharealike License, US 3.0. You must provide a link back to www.ChristopherSPenn.com if you republish these images.

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Photo Friday: Morning sunrise

Posted by Christopher S Penn on May 21, 2010 in Photography, Photoshop fun | 13 comments

In an effort to remind myself to take and post more photos, we’ll have a little fun called Photo Friday.

Click for a larger version

This is a sunrise I’ve been waiting to take ever since starting to work for Blue Sky Factory email marketing. It’s a reservoir near my house, not too far from I-90, and there’s a relatively unsafe
place to park on the side of the road that during regular traffic hours would be stupid to park in, but you can get away with it at sunrise because there’s not much traffic on the road at 5:30 AM.

I took three exposures, -2, 0, and +2 with my D90 and merged them in Photoshop.

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Whoop Ass Over IP

Posted by Christopher S Penn on Mar 9, 2007 in Blogging, Photoshop fun | 16 comments

This one is for Jeff Pulver and Jay Moonah.