Mirroring images through colour and pattern...

For this exercise we were asked to take two different images and mirror each other through the repetition of similar colours and patterns. I chose to take different images that still stuck with the same theme of fashion. Although the one image is a mannequin while the other is a fully dressed woman. I used the image of the woman as my "root" image - I didn't alter it very much, but used the colours and patterns in the other surrounding images. I used various methods such as creating displacement maps for patterns, used colour replacement tool and played with curves to get the colour levels to be similar. I hope that my choice of images are disconnected enough to make this an effective assignment. I enjoyed making the images "match" in a sense so they look like they belong together.

Photo enhancement...for the good...

In class we talked a lot about the idea of photo enhancement to make people look "perfect;" to eliminate people's "flaws" with the never ending capabilities of Photoshop. For example, making someone look younger--but why does age have to be something we want to put off as long as possible? Isn't there some sort of beauty found in the wrinkles of an aged face or worn hands? Wrinkles speak of character and experience so I don't understand why our society fears the presence of a wrinkle.

Eliminating "flaws" denies the uniqueness of us humans therefore we were challenged to enhance a photo to emphasize an ideal. I chose to deal with the idea of hunger and starvation. So rather than making someone look skinny like a society likes best, I chose to do the opposite by using the bloat tool to thicken the arms and legs of a little boy to make him look like a healthy boy should. I am not completely happy how the bloat tool manipulated the colour of the skin, but I wasn't sure how to fix that. I also added some healthy looking colour to his face and made him smile...no child should be so unhappy as the original. It is just not right for little children to be starving and as skinny as this boy was. I also clothed him which proved to be a challenge because I had to find another picture of a shirt that was in a similar position as my original photo. I then continued to use the liquify tool to make the shirt fit and then I used the burn and dodge tools to correct the lighting. I would have liked to put him in a better setting, but time was my enemy yet again as the hours slipped by as I was so engrossed in this assignment.

Original photo:

Enhanced photo: