Can you Photoshop Me Skinny?

Ooh man, if I had a dime for every time someone asked me if I could photoshop them skinny, I'd have enough dimes to buy myself an iced coffee or two.

So here's the skinny on the skinny photoshopping....I can't do it. I mean, I could do it. But I cannot take someone and modify their body substantially and still have it look natural. But the biggest thing is, I cannot make you love your body or yourself. I do not have the power to manipulate a photo to the point that you can see yourself as beautiful if you didn't already believe it. That's some deep truths.

First off, I want you to know that you are a gorgeous person. What I can do is try to pose you in flattering positions for your body shape. I will offer gentle guidance and demonstrations during our photoshoot on how to capture your best features. I will do an occasional chin tuck or smoothing clothes, but that's the biggest body modification I will do.

I also clean up facial blemishes on your chosen images. I will remove acne spots. If it'll be gone in a week, it's removed. Why? Because I get that pictures can be stressful. Sometimes breakouts happen right before a photoshoot (thanks hormones!) I won't remove scars unless specifically asked. I've also removed bug bites and road rashes.

The image on the left is what the family saw when they chose this image of C in our sibling shoot. It really captures his personality perfectly. I cleaned up his facial blemishes very slightly so the main focus would be him. I also removed his little sister, A, from the frame, since she was only halfway included to begin with. Sorry Sis!

In this photo I removed the cord that was snaking it's way on the ground, since I considered it a distraction. Looking at this photo again, I should have removed the blue car from the right in the background.

I'm able to remove items from the background, depending on how large it is and if I have something to replace it with.

I absolutely love this area in Valley Junction. It has brick sidewalks, brick walls, and an awesome fire escape. It makes a great backdrop for couples and seniors. But that pesky garbage! That is a metal garbage bin and sadly, I could not successfully move it with my muscles or remove it from these photos in post editing. I tried. For a very long time. I could get parts of it removed, but I was not successful in rebricking the sidewalk and making it look natural. I am a photographer sir, not a stone mason.

While doing this family session, we had an unfortunate incident with the golf cart tire, which left us stranded a bit far from the house, no worries though, we just hoofed it. That meant that the light was fading very quickly, but it was so gorgeous and I didn't want to miss out on an epic opportunity to photograph these two love birds. These two are childhood friends that connected in adulthood. Aww. Anyway, with the dwindling light I wasn't focused on the power lines. I was able to remove them in photoshop and add a lens flare, because I was feeling extra that day. I 100% love the end result though!

I also love enhancing eyes. My favorite feature on myself is my green eyes. They are a dark green though and it's very tricky to photograph them without them just being black. So I will oftentimes do a quick eye pop or teeth whitening on images.

It was a very subtle difference, but I removed some flyaway hair on Katie. The day of our shoot was very chilly and very windy. I love to embrace the wind but when there's a single strand right over the face, it's a distraction.

Four year old Rigby had a tumble the morning of his family's photo session, which resulted in a scratch on his cheek. No problem, it was easily edited out per mom's request. I also removed some of the fuzzies on Rigby's fleece jacket. Another super easy, but tedious task.

So that's the details on what I can and cannot do in editing. And remember, even if I can do it, I might not morally do it.