Quick Ways to Correct Flaws in Digital Photos of Faces

Elderly people are generally not very fond of having their picture taken. The reasons are obvious - old faces are easy victims of deep shadows, harsh lighting, unforgiving close-ups or sharp lenses. They may look good at candle light but once their granddaughter takes out her digital camera, the good looks are history. The obvious solutions are not that great. They can insist on a distant photo which only shows a small, indistinguishable face, put on a lot of make-up or just stay out of the photo. Fortunately, there is a better solution. With a little effort from the photographer, a picture of an old person that he/she feels comfortable with can be largely improved. You just need to familiarize yourself with a photo editing application.

You can start from the top of the photo, where the dark roots and stray hairs ruin the hair dew. The clone tool can easily remove stray hair completely. Just copy the surrounding area using a feathered clone stamp at 50% transparency. As for the dark roots, you need to clone areas of the hair which have the same color and run in the same direction in case the subject has straight hair. A 30% transparency is good for getting a natural effect. Zoom in as much as the size of your screen allows it.

Shiny foreheads are a bit more difficult to repair, but they can often be improved using a disturb brush. Set it at medium strength and 50% transparency. Set the feather at 100% and select a size that is twice as large as the area of the highlight. Darkening the area is not a good option, but you can do a great job by working carefully with the air brush. Choose a skin tone from the neighboring area using the eye dropper tool and fill the highlight area at 3% transparency.

Blemishes can be easily corrected with the clone tool set at 70% transparency. Copy from the neighboring area of unblemished skin. About the same thing can be done to correct eye bags. Drag the clone at 85% transparency over the bags to give the subject a younger look. However, be careful not to overdo it.

You can also work carefully to lightening the whites of the subject's eyes. Use a dotted line mask to outline them and transform the masked areas into an object. Open the brightness and contrast box and click once on the brightness at 3%. Do not make any attempt to adjust this area more. There is a method to open the eyes a bit but it is very complicated. You can also put a highlight in the eye if there is none using a 2-3 pixel size brush and a light grey color. You can use a feathered shape of about 100% or a crescent shape for outdoor pictures.

Another common problem of digital photographs is that teeth often look dark or yellowish. Place a dotted circle around them and open the brightness and contrast box. Click on the brightness at 5% and then adjust the color balance with 3% on magenta. You can also correct crooked teeth by cloning a good one from the opposite side. However, it takes some practice and professional training to get it right.

If the skin is too pale, you can correct it using a histogram-ceter arrow. Slide it a little bit to the right to get darker skin. Sliding it to the left should darken midtones, simulating a light sun tan. The right ends represent the whites and the left ends the blacks. There are also other methods to correct imperfections in the face. Adjusting color balance can help you warm it up by masking the head and the face and changing the balance 2% yellow and 2% red. In case it looks unnatural, try 1% for each. Windy conditions, dark shadows and blemishes are temporary, whereas a nice photo is forever.

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