I have the patience to use photoshop on a 7 year old computer. I deserve a medal.

I forgot how much editing photos calms me down. Because of turning 19, planning a trip around the world, taking a trip around the world and starting university (wow, that’s been a pretty great 6 months) I have fallen out of the habit of editing photos. Tonight I was feeling pretty tired and discouraged because of my inability to write essays because of my inability to research because of my inability to understand readings. So I sent myself to bed rather than be grumpy on other people and while I was sitting on facebook I though to myself thought I, “why don’t I take a picture of myself and edit it to cheer me up?” “great idea!” thought me. So I got my camera out and took 38 photos of myself and picked one to edit. It was just like the good old days of being 18. Its funny, editing my face doesn’t cheer me up because I am making myself look prettier, it cheers me up because I can set my mind to something and methodically change small things so that when you take a step back, it looks far better. It makes me feel like I have useful skills that could get me somewhere even if I fail at studying. It also, however oddly, makes me feel incredibly powerful.

After I edit a photo I never want to show people the before picture because they will be able to compare the two and then they will notice the imperfections that normally aren’t noticed but because they are gotton rid of they will be noticed. Tonight, however, I will put it up because I am feeling particularly good about the fact that no-one really cares what I look like as long as I strive to be a decent human being. Also I am also going to tell you what I changed:

-Changed the levels to create more of a contrast

-Retouched Eyebrows

-Removed blemishes

-Lightened upper lip

-Evened the structure of my eyelid

-Shrank my hand to make it seem less obvious

-Brightened the picture

-Raised the contrast

-changed the colour balance to reduce redness in my cheeks

-Added a a black border to the top left sides to make my face smaller

-Created a little bit of extra head band

-And Blended the headband into the background.

Viola! I don’t think I forgot anything…