Looking Perfect, One Pixel at a Time
Source: The New York Times
Written by Peter Wayner
December may be more than seven months away, but that is barely enough time for purists to lose 20 pounds, grow out bad haircuts, clean up those blemishes, and get the photos to the printer in time to mail out holiday cards.
Slackers, though, can relax because a burgeoning cottage industry in photo retouching is making it easier to clean up all of those problems with a few clicks of a mouse.
Professional photographers have relied on clever hands and sophisticated software to turn a good picture into something that stands out. Now, Web sites are selling professional retouching services. For $20 to $200 or more, anyone can get a tighter stomach, smoother skin and brighter teeth — at least in an image. In addition, a wide variety of programs make it possible for the average computer user to fix basic problems.
The marketplace is not dominated by human vanity, though, and many retouching outfits specialize in solving other problems, like fixing poorly preserved historical photographs, removing dust marks or simply balancing the colors. Emy Craciunescu, the co-owner of Phojoe.com, says 50 percent of his work is age progression, a photo alteration process to show people at different times in their lives.
“We do a lot for work for police agencies, missing people, someone who’s been divorced and the mom took the kids to California,” he said. “It’s part science, part art and a little bit intuition.”
When the problems are simple, most of the free software packages delivered with digital cameras or computers offer tools that can help. Apple’s iPhoto, for instance, comes with a tool for fixing red eye. Kodak’s EasyShare package includes a tools for tweaking the brightness, the contrast and the colors.
Many problems, though, demand more dexterity, more sophisticated software and a deeper understanding of how a computer represents an image.
Removing the wrinkles from under the eyes requires outlining the area and using a blending filter that eliminates the ripples by replacing each pixel with an average of the surrounding pixel. While the averaging is done automatically, it takes a deft hand to outline the area and choose the correct amount of blending.
Many professionals turn to Adobe’s flagship product, Photoshop, and the aftermarket offering a range of plug-in enhancements. The newest version of the product, CS3, was just released and sells for around $700. The plug-ins are sold independently. Free software packages like GIMP (available at www.gimp.org) are also popular.
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