PhotoShop as a Tool

I have enjoyed the power of PhotoShop to retouch images, ever since I tried it (ver.2.5) in film and darkroom based photography this image could be tweaked a little in the darkroom...



As a photographer I had control of the lighting, and film choice, ie; whether I would use a medium contrast film or a higher contrast film to punch the image up a bit. I could pop on a soft-focus filter (my favorite was the B+W, WZ-1). But I would have to consider retouching to fix a few blemishes on the skin, even pro models will sometimes get a pimple on a shoot day. I would also have to have a make-up artist on hand so I didn't have unevenly applied make-up. With the digital domain I can now transform the image of Becky Yuen into what I had visualized ...



The light grey background has been turned black, the make-up has been smoothed out, veins in the eye cleaned up. And lipstick colour changed a bit. I can still go further, but many go too far with PhotoShop and plasticize the model...

Darrell