A photograph of a person can be altered in Photoshop in order to produce a hyperreal representation, with human characteristics shifted towards what an audience might see as an idyllic portrayal of beauty. This kind of photo manipulation is regularly employed by cosmetics companies in order to fool their desperately haggard customers into believing that a product is imbued with youth restoring properties and might as well have been pumped directly from a mythical, Biminian well.

There has been much controversy surrounding the subject of retouching photographs for use in advertising. This 2009 Olay magazine advertisement for Definity Eye Illuminator was banned after complaints to the Advertising Standards Authority suggested that it could give a ‘misleading impression of the effect the product could achieve’.

“Olay ∨Photoshop is my secret for drop-dead gorgeous eyes.”

As hyperrealistic images are used increasingly in the media, the standard of beauty to which an audience aspires becomes more and more unattainable, leading to a greater demand for allegedly age reversing cosmetics. This is a self-perpetuating problem that peddlers of rejuvenating potions must find troubling as they roll around in piles of cash.

The use of photo manipulation to mislead an audience is not limited to advertising commercial products. The following images show the Canadarm2, a remote-controlled, mechanical arm used for space walks on the international space station. In the lower image, a Government of Canada logo is amateurishly superimposed along the shaft. Of the two images, the digitally retouched one was chosen by the Government of Canadian for use in various public relations material. This is another example of digitally manipulated photographs being used to mislead an audience, this time, perhaps, as a display of propagandist bravado.

In a more recent act of public deception, Downing Street uploaded a digitally retouched image of David Cameron wearing a remembrance poppy for use on its Facebook page. The online community was quick to point out that the photograph was actually taken in July, sans patriotic prop, in a scandal that has been predictably coined ‘Poppygate’.

Photo manipulation can be used for good, as well as for evil; please bare this in mind while reading the following tutorial.

Creating a Hyperrealistic Image in Photoshop

Image Setup

Click this image to view a full-sized version, then save it to a convenient place on your computer. Alternatively, live your own life and use your own image.

Launch Photoshop and click the File heading on the menu bar, then click Open…

When the Open dialogue box appears, navigate to the folder where your image was saved, click the thumbnail, and then click Open.

The image should appear within a new layer entitled Background.

Click the Image heading on the menu bar, then click Image Size…

When the Image Size dialogue box appears, set resolution to 300 pixels/inch.

Adjusting the resolution changes how many pixels are present per unit area of the image and, unless you have an ultra-high resolution monitor like those used on-board the International Space Station, the image will now be inflated beyond the capacity of your puny Earth monitor.

Image courtesy of The Government of Canada

To see the image at a more convenient size, click the View heading on the menu bar then click Fit on Screen.

Since I am making these tutorials as part of a Journalism course, I will change the colour mode to CMYK, the preferred mode for print. To do this, click the Image heading on the menu bar, go to Mode then click CMYK Color.

Before the image is altered, it is good practice to duplicate the layer containing the original image and work on the new copy. This ensures that the original is not lost. To do this, right click the Background layer from the Layers panel, then click Duplicate Layer…

When the Duplicate Layer dialogue box appears, you will be given the opportunity to name the new layer. Click OK to confirm duplication.

Manipulating the Image

Now that the document is set up, it’s time to assess our model. It is my personal opinion that this human being is a specimen of aesthetic perfection and, because I have a soul, I felt judgemental and unkind during the assessment process. These are feelings that must be eliminated when utilising photo manipulation in the media.

The Spot Healing Brush Tool

The Spot Healing Brush Tool samples pixels surrounding the cursor and duplicates them towards the central point. In this way, blemishes can be covered with pixels that imitate our model’s skin. Select the Spot Healing Brush Tool from the Tool Bar and use the square bracket keys on the keyboard to adjust the size of the tool. It may be useful to zoom in to the image at this point so that individual blemishes can be seen in more detail; hold ctrl and push the plus or minus key to zoom in or out. Place the cursor over the spot you wish to heal and resize the Spot Healing Brush Tool so that it surrounds the blemish. Left clicking should cause the blemish to disappear in a puff of ones and zeros.

Liquify

The Liquify filter allows pixels to be shifted around the canvas so that you can alter the shape of specific facial features. To access the Liquify filter, click the Filter heading on the menu bar, then click Liquify…

On clicking Liquify… you will be presented a new window from which the Liquify filter can be applied. The new window has its own tool bar which contains the Bloat, Pucker and Forward Warp tools.

The Bloat Tool pushes pixels away from the cursor; this is useful for giving plumper lips and subtly bigger eyes. The Pucker Tool pulls pixels towards the cursor; this is useful for shrinking features and pulling in a second chin. The Forward Warp Tool pushes pixels in the direction that you click and drag the cursor; this is useful for accentuating a smile and straightening a jaw line. Brace yourself before scrolling down to see my abominable results; I am not very good at Photoshop but, honestly, these tools are used by professions to augment images with digital beauty.

Reducing Redness

Now that our model’s facial structure has been twisted into that of a photorealistic hentai character, we can work on her complexion. Click the Image heading on the menu bar, go to Adjustments and then click Hue/Saturation.

The Hue/Saturation dialogue box will appear with sliders for adjusting Hue, Saturation and Lightness. The redness of our model’s skin can be reduced by lowering the saturation of reds and increasing the saturation of magentas. Select Reds from the dropdown menu and move the slider to the left, then repeat for Magentas, this time moving the slider to the right.

When the Preview checkbox is ticked, adjustments can be seen in real-time, allowing the user to tweak settings until the desired adjustment is achieved.

Burn and Dodge

By brushing over the image with the Burn or Dodge tools, pixels can be lightened or darkened respectively; these tools allows us to accentuate shadows and highlights. The Dodge Tool can be found, selected by default, on the Menu Bar, a long click on the Dodge Tool reveals a list of additional, related tools from which the Burn Tool can be selected.

When the Dodge Tool is selected, its properties can be altered from the Tool Settings Bar. Confirm that Highlights is selected from the Range dropdown menu, reduce exposure to around 10% and enable the Airbrush. If we imagine that the light source is located to our model’s upper right, by painting with the Dodge Tool, we can begin to lighten areas that would be directly illuminated.

Similar settings should be chosen when using the Burn Tool apart from Range which is set to Shadows by default. By painting with the Burn Tool, we can begin to darken areas that would be enshadowed.

Again, I am not very good at Photoshop, nor do I understand how make effective use of lighting, but here are my results.

Airbrushing

The final step in this tutorial is to cover any remaining human blemishes with synthetic pixels. Airbrushing with colours sampled from our model’s skin will make the result as realistic as possible. Choose the Eyedropper Tool from the Tool Bar and click an area of darker, shadowed skin. Create a new Swatch for this colour by highlighting the Swatches tab of the Swatches Panel and clicking the new swatch icon.

Create new swatches for two more low-tones, three mid-tones and three high-tones. Each colour will be added to the Swatches Panel.

Click the Layers heading from the Menu Tool Bar, go to New, then click Layer…

From the New Layer dialogue box, the name and properties of the new layer can be set. Tick the Use Previous Layer to Create Clipping Mask checkbox, choose Multiply from the Mode dropdown menu and set Opacity to around 25%, then click OK to create the new layer.

A new, transparent layer will be placed on top of our image, onto which we can paint our chosen skin tones. Select the Brush Tool from the Tool Bar and adjust its properties from the Tool Settings Bar. I have chosen the pre-set brush with a size of 600 pixels and 0% hardness. Flow should be reduced to around 50% to allow more gradual manipulation.

By clicking on one of our new swatches, the Brush Tool can be used to paint appropriate tones over areas of varying illumination. Once our model sufficiently resembles a porcelain sex-robot, the hyperrealistic transformation is complete.