| Concerned that you look larger than life in family | | | | where you just cloned background over your |
| photos? Shocked by the images you see after a | | | | protrusion. Smudge toward your body, pulling in the |
| shutterbug hits? Not to worry. Just follow my | | | | pixels. This flattens your belly better than any stupid |
| solution for faking fitness in family photos and you | | | | crunches. If you have chub in your cheeks, move the |
| too can look fabulous. | | | | smudge tool over your hair and wisp it onto your |
| Why go through the hassle of reductive surgery or | | | | cheeks. This reduces the amount of cheek showing |
| sweet deprivation when I have perfected photo | | | | and gives the impression of a thinner face, but don't |
| fitness retouching? On a good day, I can whack off | | | | overdo with the hairdo. |
| 10 to 20 pounds from wide format originals and then | | | | Open the resize object tool. Reduce the width of |
| share the moments with the whole family. No pain | | | | your photo by 10 or so pixels while keeping the |
| for the gain. | | | | length the same. Everyone in the photo gets thinner - |
| Let's begin with the two fundamental ways to alter | | | | very fair. Speaking of fair, find dark areas like under |
| your ego through your images: retouching and | | | | your eyes and use the brightness tool to lighten |
| reprinting existing photos, and the use of digital | | | | them a couple of steps. Don't go overboard or you |
| techniques. | | | | will be discovered and you will ruin it for all of us. |
| If you want to look your best with standard prints, | | | | The finishing touch is to apply a slight blur to the |
| you are stuck with scanning, retouching and reprinting | | | | whole photo. This reduces pore size and fades age |
| photos using photo imaging software and your | | | | spots better than nobody's business. Sure, you won't |
| computer. This took so much time that I went out | | | | end up on the cover of Cosmo but you will be |
| and bought my brother-in-law, Don, the family | | | | unexplainably photogenic. Just smile and say, "Pass |
| cameraman, a digital. It was worth the small fortune | | | | the cheese." |
| so that I could look like a million. He thought I was | | | | Before long you will be manipulating your images like |
| very generous. So did I, hence the camera purchase. | | | | Bill Clinton in an election year. |
| And once you've gone digital, you'll never go back. | | | | These illusions will make you feel better unless some |
| The techniques are the same whether you scan and | | | | stupid relative passes around their own photos. For |
| retouch or just download and retouch. | | | | me, the solution to this has been to take control the |
| Let's focus on the reduction techniques. You should | | | | family photos and rule them like a tyrannical despot. |
| get familiar with the clone, smudge, re-size, lighten | | | | The time spent "working on" and making copies of |
| and blur tools your new best friends. These little | | | | photos for the family makes for a few less home |
| helpers work effectively to dwarf your stomach, | | | | cooked dishes but I haven't missed any meals. |
| thighs, cheeks and backside. Hi ho. | | | | To date, no one has caught on to my fake fitness |
| This no-fuss, no muss elective procedure begins with | | | | routine. Once, my husband once threatened to |
| cloning. Clone a small portion of the area in your | | | | expose my photo fitness techniques to the family. |
| photo front of your stomach, buttocks or thighs | | | | After I threatened to stop making desserts, he kept |
| over this area, replacing it ever so slightly. | | | | his aperture shut. |
| Next, take the smudge tool. Go over the edges | | | | |