The results are as follows, the standard original picture below left and the model after the digital makeover on the right.

A while ago I followed a Photoshop tutorial to smooth out skin on a photo image, you can check out the previous post photo-retouching-skin. My last attempt was pretty awful, poor girl looks like she has sunburn. So I had to have another try. Basically its a process which is not too dissimilar to the techniques used on photo’s for fashion ads and magazine layouts. Whereby certain parts of a photo are digitally modified or enhanced to make them appear more appealing to the target audience. Sometimes the modifications can be quite minor, they can also be pretty big with changes in shape to body parts, eyes, ears, nose basically once the image is digital there isn’t anything which cannot be modified and I’m fairly certain the average Joe isn’t quite aware of just how much every day images we see are modified in such a manner.

This time I followed this tutorial Mizuno’s Super Airbrush PP Tutorial which is a pretty darn kewl tut on airbrushing skin. I decided to use a different image for the tutorial and it is a stock image. Now I personally believe that both the woman in the tut and the image I have used did not need any PS help at all. Its just done for the sake of it and I’ll save my discussion on creating unrealistic beauty for a future post.

I did carry out a few extra processes on my version. One is the obvious St Tropez suntan (fake self tan lotion of course), the Dior eye liner and also the must have look for this fashion season, the hot rouge lipstick. For me its not a super polished end result maybe I’ll try a few others. Do remember regardless of whether beauty is on the inside or outside, beauty within fashion images is most definitely fake.