The Perfectionist

This picture came by as an accident so to speak. It was about 2 in the morning, and I had recently recieved a make up mirror. I saw how the light had reflected in my eyes and thought it would make a great picture.

Now Photoshopping this picture did take some time. First, I used the Spot Healing brush to clean up any blemishes or imperfections on my face that I thought would take away from the "idea" that I was trying to get at with this photograph. Next, I made a copy of the background, by dragging it down to the "New Layer" button at the bottom of the layer palette. On the new layer, I went to Filters and applied the Noise/Dust and Scratches tool by setting it at a radius of 10. Next, I went to the Blur/Gaussian Blur tool, and set it at a radius of 4.7.

With the new layer selected, I added a layer-mask and pushed ctrl-I to mask or "hide" the previous steps that I had done (the blur and the dust and scratches). I then selected the paint tool and sized it to the appropriate amount which was a Master Diametre of 76px, and "painted" my new skin on. The reason for me doing that, is because I wanted to convey a perfectionist looking into a mirror. So, I made my skin soft and nearly perfect, with no scars or blemishes to reflect how a perfectionist might see themselves in a mirror, or how they want to. Finally, I darkened the background to bring all focus onto the subject (myself in this case).