Date taken: 13/2/13
Location: Bedroom
Settings: Shutter Speed: 1/25 | Aperture: f/5.6 | ISO: 200
For ‘ugliness’ I wanted to take something that is supposed to be beautiful and make it ugly. I took a portrait of a barbie and made it look older and not so happy on Photoshop. I also added a cigarette in her mouth.
How I did it:
Changed levels for more contrast
On a new layer, used the brush tool on an opaque brown colour to darken the eye area
Liquify filter to make the face more droopy (dragged things like mouth, cheeks, eyes, eyebrows and made neck larger)
Added image of cigarette, cut it out with the quick selection tool, ctrl + T > perspective, drop shadow
Added image of wrinkled woman’s face (google images), opacity 32%, fit to barbie’s face (ctrl + T and warp), erase edges
Added layer and filled with orangey colour on top of wrinkles layer to match skin tone to barbie’s skin using brush tool and blending mode ‘Soft Light’
I like the end product because I achieved my goal of making something nice look not as nice. I could have spent more time editing and perhaps adding other, more typically ‘ugly’ features but I am happy with how it is now. I like how the image now looks more sad now that barbie is not smiling and her eyes look aged. The peachy filled layer I added on top has given the photo sadder feel as well and makes it look like an old photograph.
< Before and after.
Joanna Dale 