Photoshopping Face Painting Photos..

Ok so I have to admit most of my photos are slightly photo shopped, the back ground is blurred/blacked out, the image is brightened and more contrasted and occasionally I have to remove food off the face or smudged marks.
Last night I was editing a few photos and my husband kindly pointed out I hadn't put the carry bag through the stalks mouth, it was kinda just floating behind. This now bugged me and I decided to try a quick fix up with photoshop. After that I then felt really guilty, like I was cheating....
My question is how far is too far... would you ever photoshop/edit the picture..??

For publishing purposes I will fix blemishes, eye lights, stray hairs, neaten edges sometimes (depending what I am doing with the photo - if the image is being blown up to be put on my car for example!) clean up the background, brighten the colors...

Generally though I don't do a lot .... mainly because I am not that comfortable with Photoshop! Some projects or submissions to magazines want things cropped or masked to be used with mastheads, etc.

Most of my stuff is NOT altered. I don't have time to play around usually.

i say if u r capable of doing it then go for it! all the work is still yours and a little line here or there won't make that much difference either way. your stuff always looks so beautiful u have nothing to worry about!

I think if you are using it to make what you painted better than what you actually paint then it's wrong especially if you are using the pic to advertise yourself . For personal photos (belly shots is a prime example) or to remove food, brighten, highlight etc then it's ok.
What it all boils down to though is your conscience! In my opinion, imperfection isn't necessarily bad

I know its not really that noticeable but I was just fixing up something I would have fixed at the time if I had noticed...

Question: how did you all learn Photoshop? I am thinking I would like to do an online tutorial, if there is such a thing. I have tried to teach it to myself, but I only keep the knowledge for a few days, and then I lose it!

I've noticed that the pics often don't look like the real thing, so Photoshopping is fine for that. Removing a food stain, etc is ok. Complete alteration to improve the design would probably be misleading. Always keep your original as most contests will boot your photo if it's been altered. I asked Gary at Snaz & he said he's got a good eye for an altered pic & will not use it in a contest.

I photoshop most of my pics that go online... not to make them look different, but just to make them look nice.... very much like Daizys... I brighten and color correct because my camera seems to give everything a blue tint. I make people look people colored! Then I'll fix little things like if there are acne spots or something. I'll do the same with adjusting backgrounds that are really busy, or fixing contrast if my subject was backlit and hard to see. I don't typically alter the actual painting much... maybe touch up an edge here or there, but it isnt changing the design at all. The difference between a raw photo and one that's been enhanced with lighting and color adjustments makes a big difference. It's actually very standard practice in any professional marketing since you always want to put your best image forward.

And Barbie... I'm a graphic designer by day, so I've been using it professionally for years. But you can learn online at a site called Lynda.com. They have excellent online tutorials for all kinds of programs. (But you do have to atually have the program to learn it.) I definitely recommend this if you want to learn any new software or learn updated versions, tips & tricks. Hope that helps!

Adjusting brightness, color, contrast and sharpness for pictures is all part of good photography as far as I am concerned. "Fixing" things (for me) is reserved for promotional materials. I have made teeth/eyes whiter, faces a bit thinner, darkened the background, etc. This is all stuff that any advertiser would do when preparing a photo of a product for publication.

I don't know photoshop...I use an old programm called I photo plus...but I only crop the picture...(and the soccerball I stretched a bit in width...when she stood up, the ball dropped a bit!.. ) I rarely change anything...

Other than cropping a pic...my photos are untouched whether posted here for a contest or on my website. What you see is what you get...which is how it should be. I mean just think how many times in our own daily lives we have been mislead by advertising that ended up not being quite what we were expecting/ or lead to believe it would be. But that's just my take.

I crop out all unnecessary background stuff in my pics, but that's it. Oh, & if I can I try to crop out my nose(not happy with that appendage on me ). I don't change anything else because I don't know how too.... I'd love to figure out how to make the backgrounds black for my website pics.

thanks for the suggestion of lynda.com - I am off to take a look!

I took a class at our local arts centre that was taught by a local photographer. Photoshop is NOT user friendly!

Most of my editing which is generally cropping and background adjusting is done in MS PictureIt which came on my computer!

Like the other, it depends. Making a photo look good: cropping, white balance, etc, would be expected. It gnaws at me to see painter post things and the color is all yellow or just wrong.

For body painting, I fix some things for the shots that the client has paid for. For example: the sweat smears from under the breasts or underarms.

I think the no-no thing would be to change things so that it's not representative of your original work.

And, there are load of youtube tutorials on photoshop.

There is a program called Lightroom by Adobe that is does all the necessary adjustments. Very easy. You can catalogue your pics, add watermarks & metadata along with all the colour correction you should need to do.

Can I also just add (and this is probably just the cynic in me) if your pics are obviously photoshopped then unless I've seen your work/service/product in the flesh I'd be less likely to believe the pictures are a true representation of the work/product.

If it were me I would write on my website something along the lines of 'whilst I edit my photos I do not under any circumstances retouch the paint work. All my photos show a true representation of my artistic ability'

Daizy, your photos are beautiful and your painting speaks for itself. I love your designs, you are extremely gifted and I hope one day to paint half as well.

This is the MOST photoshopped image I've ever done myself - original is on the left, the edited on the right... I don't think anyone could accuse me of "altering" my work or misrepresenting it! This was for promotional purposes so it is SOP to edit the images being used.

That I did: Took out the hair, cleaned up the lettering (made the white inside the letter outlines completely white as there was some yellow smudges and neatened the black lines), took out slight puckers on the nipple covers and the seam, took out creases in the thong... that's it.

Shannon, I'm so glad you gave the answers, cause I was having trouble playing the "What's different" game. lol

And agreed on the disappearing of the nipple covers... I HATE those!

I'll show n tell too!



In Photoshop: I fixed the paint under her breast, disappeared the edges and the shine on the nipple covers
In Lightroom: I punched up the color, fixed the exposure, and added the vignette around the edges.

This lady was fantastic! She was my first body art that I got paid for!!! This past weekend we did it, and it's going to be part of a calendar for her husband who is into cars and is battling cancer.

ChangingFaceDesigns wrote:Other than cropping a pic...my photos are untouched whether posted here for a contest or on my website. What you see is what you get...which is how it should be. I mean just think how many times in our own daily lives we have been mislead by advertising that ended up not being quite what we were expecting/ or lead to believe it would be. But that's just my take.

I agree with this to a certain extent. It's all relative though. Some people have better cameras than others, some situations have better natural lighting... those things drastically change the way a photo turns out, but is it misleading to take advantage of the best lighting/camera/coloring that you can? "Tweaking" photos (adjusting the colors, cropping, etc) is just another similar way of making your pictures look their very best.

If I were to go to a job interview, I would put forth my very best appearance.

Every photo we use in our line of work is a job interview.

I think it's fine for your website & advertising materials, but not for competition.

For instance, I could barely see the difference in you belly painting before & after pic. Now, if you'd had some major fudges in the painting & altered the pic to cover up a lack of skill, that would be wrong(IMO). So, that said, you're pics & designs are wonderful & I don't think you're doing anything wrong.

Competitions generally have rules that state NO photoshopping or alterations anyway so that is moot.

The photos on my website are all unaltered - except for cropping and backgrounds. I don't have time to mess around on the day-to-day photos. Just special projects that are going to be printed or custom work that has to be as perfect as possible for the customer's use.

BarbieSmith wrote:Question: how did you all learn Photoshop? I am thinking I would like to do an online tutorial, if there is such a thing. I have tried to teach it to myself, but I only keep the knowledge for a few days, and then I lose it!

I have just picked it up as I go, occasionally if I am completely stumped I go to you tube. I do pretty much the same things with each photo, exposure, darkening the background etc. Doing them over and over is the best way to remember.
A lot of my photos I just tweak a little in iPhoto which is pretty simple.
To get a black background I always make sure the background is plain and dark, I can't do anything fancier than that

Interesting hearing all your thoughts on the topic. I don't feel quite so bad with the editing I have done.
I love the subtle differences in your before and afters, JBax and Shannon

Shannon Fennell wrote:Competitions generally have rules that state NO photoshopping or alterations anyway so that is moot.

I really struggle to leave a photo without any adjusting at all, most of the time when I take photos unless I have perfect lighting my camera settings make it really dark. I do the exposing after loading the to the computer, usually that is all I do (other than darkening the background)... would that be unacceptable in a competition...??? Just clarifying to myself for future reference...

The rules usually are NO photoshopping, period. And I know that photos do get rejected because editing was detected (not mine!!)

I take photos that are for competition use against my black backdrop to make it easy to crop and with different lighting - flash, no flash, a spot... I need to get a light coloured backdrop, just haven't got to it yet.