Now You See it...

Many people perceive the ordinary human body to be that of the super models seen in magazines and on television advertisements but that is not the way any real person actually looks. In fact, there is a lot of work done to that picture before it is published in order to make the picture "perfect". As shown in the above picture, I have made it look as if my face is on Vanessa Hudgens' head. As you can see, the skin complexion is completely different.

I feel that the edited picture looks nothing like the original. Considering the edited picture contains only my face from my eyebrows to my bottom lip, it does not look like me. The only things that look the same are the smile and the nose shape. Every other aspect of the picture was edited to make the two pictures come together as one. I added color on my eyelids and my cheek bones to add eyeshadow and blush.

As I was completing this task, I realized just how much work is put into making pictures look absolutely perfect before being published in magazines and on advertisements. I used to think that all famous people were flawless but after this I realize that is not always the case.

Today's view of the perfect body image is highly distorted. Everyone assumes that the perfect body image is what is seen on the cover of magazines because that is what publishers want people to think. There is actually no such thing as the "perfect body image"; it is impossible.

There are a few things that I think I did very well on. One of those things is copying the face over to Vanessa Hudgens. Another thing I think I did well is adding the facial makeup. I feel that these were my two strongest points because I was able to make not only the copied face but also the face makeup look natural, not as if it had been faked.

Although I did some things right, I also think there are some areas that I should have added some extra effort into. One of these parts of the picture that needed extra effort is aligning the facial features to match the second picture. Another thing was getting her original skin complexion to match the edited facial complexion. these were issues because looking at her neck and her chest, you can tell that her facial complexion is different from the rest of her body.

This is one example of how much editting is done to a photo and how the image of the perfect body is not exactly accurate and should therefore not be a goal to reach for anyone.

A day in the life...

A day in the life...consists of pictures taken by me about what life is like in my shoes. I made this collage using the techniques I have learned for photoshop along with the elements of photography that I took into consideration when taking these pictures. In the upper right hand corner of this collage I took into account the element of simplicity in order to draw more focus to my friend. In order to make this picture look better I had to change the contrast using photoshop because the picture was a bit too dark. The picture of staris is in this collage because I walk up and down the stairs on a daily basis. For this picture, I foused mainly on using the rule of thirds in order to make sure that the stairs were the main focus of the photograph. Using photoshop, I changed the picture to black and white instead of leaving it with the natural colors.


The picture in the top left hand corner, used the burn tool in photoshop. The burn tool is used to darken certain areas is an image. I used it to darken areas around the lights at the top. the picture at the bottom right hand corner shows the unity of my friends. I used photoshop to rotate this picture because I feel that it looked a bit crooked and this way it's a little bit straighter. In the bottom right hand corner of the collage, shows two girls at their lockers. This is crucial to my day because I go to my locker at least four times a day. In this picture I used the dodge tool. The dodge tool works like the burn tool except the dodge tool lightens areas instead of darkening them. I used it around the bottom of the lockers because the color was an awkward gradient and it did not seem to fit.


The picture right above that was used in my collage because I see these two girls on a daily basis because both of them are in my homeroom. For this picture, there was several different aspects in the background that were not necessary so using photoshop, I cropped the picture to make the two girls the main focus of the photo. The picture right above that is a picture of chemistry. I am doing chemistry on a daily basis because it is an AP class and therefore requires more work on my part. After I took this picture, I realized that the girl in the picture had a nice smile but it had a yellowish tint to it. I opened the picture in photoshop, and using the lasso tool, I traced around her smile. I then went to the right side of the screen, right clicked the circle that was half white and half black, and clicked on hue/saturatuion. Then i clicked the drop down arrow next to master, clicked on yellows, and changed the saturation to as low as possible, thus whitening her smile.