[rec.photo.digital] Re: Facial Manipulation
Johann Snyman
From: A bit more than <ti...@beerlover.com.au>
Newsgroups: rec.photo.digital
On Mon, 05 May 2003 14:49:39 GMT, William Millspaugh <spama...@earthlink.net>
wrote:
> Can anyone advise me on a good facial manipuation software that you
> can acutally turn an ugly person into a beauty..Freeware would be
> nice..Bill
Try alcohol.
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Lionel
posts. The ultimate will be if^H^Hwhen some humour-impaired type
actually takes this particular post seriously.]
Subject: Re: Facial Manipulation
From: Kevin Buhr <bu...@telus.net>
Newsgroups: rec.photo.digital
"Tony Spadaro" <tspa...@ncmaps.rr.com> writes:
>
> It's called a burlap bag.
Yeah, thanks for nothing, pal!
<FLAME>
Look, you guys with easy access to an endless supply of hot
supermodels can poke fun all you want, but some of us are stuck
photographing some real lens-shattering freaks and need *practical*
suggestions.
A burlap bag isn't much help unless you're trying for some fruity
arthouse crap. And a bag can't hide the *inner* ugliness of the most
wretched subjects. So, what about those of us who just want to take
tasteful nudes of repulsive people? What are we supposed to do?
Leave photographing to the "professionals"? Get a "real job"? Like I
said, thanks for nothing.
Frankly, if you have no useful information to contribute to this
thread, go off somewhere else and argue about why the camera you
bought is so much better than the one someone else bought or why
so-and-so paid way too much for his tripod on eBay or which telephoto
lens is the most ideal for taking pictures of your own colon.
</FLAME>
Anyway, to William: As you're no doubt aware, consumer digital
photographic technology has revolutionized amateur photography of the
hideous. Techniques that would have been impossible, or at least
prohibitively expensive, in a film darkroom are available to amateurs
like us for next to nothing.
I don't use Photoshop. I actually blew so much money on my rig that I
didn't have any money left for software. (My first love is panoramic
landscapes of stadium seating, so I have three 10Ds and a G3 strapped
together with leather belts. The G3 is there just for its LCD preview
and for adding audio annotations to shots, so I don't forget which
arena is which. I can also use it in a pinch---for action shots of
running security guards, say---if the 10Ds' batteries all die, which
they frequently do.)
But I *do* use the GIMP for retouching (and massive digital overhauls,
in some cases), and my techniques are basically universal.
For mild acne or blemishes (I should be so lucky!), the clone tool is
your friend. In many cases, where the texture of the dermatological
damage isn't too distracting, you can get particularly good results by
cloning only the red channel from a nearby area.
For open wounds or gashes that seep or are otherwise clearly septic,
there may not be enough non-vomit-inducing source surface for your
cloning efforts. The same goes for a subject who's just ugly overall
with no specific localized skin condition.
One approach I've taken is to compose shots of my ugly subject with
some other, pleasant looking object, like a vase or bowl of fruit, in
the foreground. As long as the nice object is still well within the
field of focus, I always have the option later of selectively blurring
out the uglification and pretending that the shot was really supposed
to be a fruit bowl still life all along and someone just wandered into
the shot during the exposure. (This is surprisingly effective---I'll
put up my "Apples and Oranges, Interrupted 1" and "Apples and Oranges,
Interrupted 2" later this week so you can see for yourself.)
Another possibility is to drop the colour information entirely and
turn the shot into a black and white or sepia shot. This has the
effect of muting the initial disgusted reaction. The modern viewer,
through exposure to cable TV specialty channels, is primed to
interpret anything "black and white" as "made sometime in the 50s and
boring". There's a cognitive dissonance effect that takes several
seconds to resolve. By the time the viewer realizes he is just
looking at a banal head-and-shoulders shot of some dog-faced fatso,
he's hooked!
Finally, if you have a good library of stock photographs of spaceships
and planets and stuff, with a little doctoring you can turn your dull
portrait into an exciting sci-fi concept shot. I'll post links to my
"Mutant Atomic Freaks on Saturn" and "Radiation Poisoning Redacted" if
anyone's interested.
Well, this is getting a bit long, and even though I *could* go on
forever, I probably shouldn't. I hope the above gets you started,
though.
By the way, I tried getting people interested in starting up a
"rec.photo.technique.ugly-people" newsgroup back in 1999, but the
initial RFD spawned a massive flamewar over whether or not it (and all
other "rec.photo" groups) should be moderated or whether the new group
should instead be named "rec.photo.technique.ugly.people" or
"rec.photo.technique.people.ugly"). I eventually dropped the whole
thing in frustration, but the times are a changin', so maybe it's time
to resurrect the idea.