Welcome back to Instagram vs. Reality, the segment on the channel where we call out bad
photoshop practices and impossible beauty standards with science, or just basic common
sense, really.
As always, these videos are intended to be informative and are not aimed to target or
slander anyone’s brand.
This week’s submissions are from r/instagramreality.
The first example[a] we have is of Miranda Kerr and as we can see from the wonky lines
on the carpet that this picture has been heavily edited[b].
You don't have to be an expert to see it for yourself.
They have widened her hips and shrunk her knees down[c] and so we can fix the picture
by finding the vanishing point.
(A vanishing point in an image is the point towards which all of the lines seem to converge)
Any line we draw from that point should line up with all of the lines converging to that
point.
We can use this as a guide to help us make these curved lines straight again.[d] To fix
that, we can use our trusty liquify tool.[e] This is the reason why professional retouchers
do not use excessive liquify and even if they do it's only on clothing to make the creases
go away or to make the baggy clothes fit better.[f] Complex geometry such as the carpet is very
easy to spot if disturbed.
As you can see, there's not a lot of difference between the before[g] and the after[h], so
the use of liquify here was subtle and you're gonna see a similar pattern in the rest of
our examples today.
The second example[i] we have is of yet another unnecessary edit.
There seems to be a trend today where people edit their pictures way too much even when
it's not needed[j] and in the process, they forget about perspective, how and where the
model is placed or how he or she is positioned with respect to the camera and the surroundings.
As you can see here, they have bulged her left hip out[k] way too much which shouldn't
look like that because we should only be seeing her right hip and not the left one, and even
if we do there should not be that much of a curve.
You can see that it looks makes her look like she is pregnant[l].
That could be the case but her right hand begs to differ.
If you see closely her right hand is stretched out so they definitely have edited this picture.[m]
We can just fix this by using the liquify tool but first extract the background behind
her so we can edit the foreground without affecting the background[n].
Even if we distort it using the liquify tool now, which we are going to do, we won't affect
the background.
This is why you should either have your subject on a plain background or cut the subject out
from the background so you have more control without affecting the background.[o] As you
can see here, in our example, the background was affected [p]so we can use the layer that
we extracted to fix it with a little bit of the clone stamp tool[q].
Now her leg placement and hips are more natural[r] than it did at the start[s].
The third example[t] we have is not that bad because it is somewhat accurate as these proportions
can be realistic, but you can see the wall behind her is bent outwards[u].
You can't really be too critical about pictures like these because they are probably edited
on phones where using your thumbs you have a lot less control.
It's surprising because these things get called out everywhere and people make reaction videos
to it[v] and yet still people are making the same mistakes.
The need for editing each and every single picture arises from celebrities, especially
so called Instagram influencers who we know for a fact, heavily edit their pictures[w]
and people try to follow the trend of getting the "perfect" hourglass body shape without
the proper knowledge of the tools used to achieve it.
For men, the equivalent would be fake natural bodybuilders who promote a natural lifestyle
and gains while being on exogenous testosterone.
To fix this one, we're going to use the forward warp tool from the liquify toolbar[x].
Again, it's not too different than the original[y], but the need to edit is simply human nature
to want that little bit more and ruin an already good thing.
The fourth example[z] is of a guy with adobe gains.
This one is not hard to miss, as it checks all the boxes of a bad liquify edit.
There are distorted pixels[aa], blur zones[ab] and distinct bendy lines in the background[ac].
He has used the liquify tool to bulge out his biceps, triceps, thighs and also his calf.[ad]
This is a combination of tools, which could be called something else in another software
but in Photoshop it's the forward warp tool and the bloat tool.
These tools do exactly what their name says, the forward warp tool pushes the pixels forward
while you click and drag your cursor and the bloat tool bloats the pixels away from the
center of the brush.
You can spot the use of the first tool near his left thigh[ae] where the concrete block
behind him is following the shape of his thigh[af] and his left shoulder.[ag] The second tool
has been used on his left bicep[ah] and his left thigh where you can see his jeans strands
look blurry and distorted.
[ai]He clearly has overdone it and that's why it looks blurry at some places (places
where he's used the liquify tool)[aj] and sharper at others[ak] (places that were not
edited).
To fix it we can use the same old liquify tool, to be more specific the combination
of the forward warp tool and the pucker tool to push the pixels around, slowly, without
further damaging the picture, which is impossible at this point but still we can fix it to some
extent.
[al]
The next example is about the impossible proportions we talked about earlier.
You can tell this picture has been edited as
* Her left hand is squished from the liquify tool
* Her waist is smaller than her head[am] Credit where credit's due, she had the right
idea about the background selection[an].
It's just a plain gray background which helps with two things:
* Distorting the picture with no noticeable difference in the background[ao]
* Fixing the white balance in post production[ap]
We can do the reverse of what she has done and fix it using the liquify tool and slowly
push her waist and her left hand outwards.[aq] As you can see, it looks much more realistic
[ar]and even then she’s manipulating angles by rotating her hips away from the camera
to make it slimmer.
The next example[as] is another one having impossible proportions because, while her
head looks too big and it is not possible to have such a big head with such a small
neck, there are exceptions where people have different builds and do not follow the proportion
rules.
This is not one of those examples, as you can see in the background, the chair is curved
downwards which probably happened while she was making her neck look thinner.[at]
There is a trend in China where they want smaller necks, bigger eyes and a pointy chin[au].
Obviously she went overboard and it’s noticeable.
Her chin is very pointy[av] and perfect but then again, that could really be the case,
but you can't really tell as these pictures are so heavily edited.
Maybe she didn't actually edit her chin to make it look more pointy, but you can't really
be sure unless you have an unedited picture of the person.
That's why less is always more in terms of editing a picture.
To fix this we're using the good old liquify tool to bring her neck back to a realistic
size and use the face aware tool to decrease her head width.
[aw]The face aware tool is part of the Adobe Sensei package where using Artificial intelligence
Photoshop can detect a face and its features can be adjusted discretely.
The features are pretty limited and using the brush to do it yourself is ideal but in
this case it does help with the head width by moving all of the pixels in one motion.
The next example[ax] is not that bad as compared to the others[ay] in terms of proportions,
but in terms of the editing, it is kind of sloppy because if you zoom in to her butt[az],
you can see that the fence and the door frame behind her is warped around her butt[ba].
It might not be obvious at first, but the pattern print of her onesie is ever so slightly
blurred and sheared from its surrounding pixels due to the liquify tool disrupting the area.
She probably used a phone app to edit the picture, as you can see in the shadow, the
guy is holding a phone.[bb] To fix it, we're going to use the liquify
tool once more to straighten out the fence and the door frame.[bc] Instantly you can
see the difference between the before[bd] and the after[be] and again it’s quite subtle.
I don't know why she thought she had to edit it because the risk to reward here is very
low.
Examples like these are proof of over-reliance on photo editing and altering proportions[bf],
not only in women, but in men[bg] also.
Once you know what to look for, it’s often better to leave the photo untouched, unless
you can guarantee a perfect coverup.
The next example[bh] is of another guy getting Adobe gains and he thought he was gonna get
away with it seeing how subtle the changes are, but little does he know QOVES Studio
needed some content this week to get to the 10 minute mark.
Also you can see in the background, near his right shoulder the stall door is kind of curved
outwards and the frame on his left side is bent too.
[bi] To fix this one, we're going to reverse engineer
what he's done and use the liquify tool[bj].
Notice that it's not much of a difference between the before and the after[bk] so it
genuinely is hard to understand as to why they feel they have to edit their pictures
when the end result[bl] is not far off from the original[bm].[bn]
The final example [bo]is not so bad in terms of editing[bp] and background choice[bq] but
in terms of the proportions, well, that's a different story. It's just common sense
that a waist that size is not going to be able to fit all the organs required.
Her waist also looks smaller than her head like in our previous example [bs]which is
not possible unless you have a procedure done to take the lower ribs out.
It's called a rib resection and it's done to get that hourglass shape of the body, but
the ribs exist for a reason, so just pray you don’t bump into anyone or you might
accidentally die.
Even then, your waist does not become lesser than the size of your head.
You can't really see how she's edited it because there are no blur zones or stretched out pixels
and that's the only silver lining here[bt].
Which is why in terms of editing it is okay, but it is just absurd in terms of physical
proportions and this is where the common sense part comes in because you do not have to be
a professional to know that these measurements are just impossible to achieve.
We're going to use the same old liquify tool to fix this one too.
Use the forward warp tool to carefully push her waist outward and we do not need to care
about the background here because it already is messy, so even if we do push things around
it's going to look like creases on her bed sheet[bu].
It's clear that the final result is much more realistic and believable than the original.[bv]
Alright, that brings another episode to a close.
Hopefully you’ve learnt something about Photoshop techniques.
We’ve covered everything here in a previous video somewhere along in the series so I recommend
watching it all to get upto date.
I encourage you to follow us on Instagram where we post quality morphs and before and
afters of the examples used here so you can see for yourself.
As always, if you’re enjoying the content, you can really support the channel by subscribing
and click the notification bell to catch future episodes.[bw]
[a]1 [b]Zoom in to the carpet around her knees
and hips and mark it [c]Zoom in to her hips and knews
[d]Video 1, 1:07
show that all the lines converge to this point [e]Video 1,
1:29 to 3:21 Speed up or slow down
[f]https://youtu.be/8ZKe87xPKLw 2:47 to 4:08
[g]1 [h]1F
[i]2 [j]Show the examples of liquify edits from
previous videos
https://youtu.be/eJvQ0Ml1v6I [k]Zoom in to her left hip
[l]Circle the left hip [m]Zoom in to her left hand and circle ot
[n]Video 2, 00:00 to 00:15
[o]https://youtu.be/JfXl8U2yDOU 1:40- 2:40
Speed up or slow down accordingly [p]Video 2
00:40-00:46 [q]Video 2,
1:47-3:08 Speed up or slow down to match
[r]2F [s]2, show 2, 2f side by side
[t]3 [u]3, zoom in to the bent wall behind her
[v]https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=bad+photoshops
Show the list of videos that show up in the search results
[w]https://youtu.be/-c6_X5857mo
https://youtu.be/XGmu1ktgOBE
Show the different examples of khloe kardashian, kylie jenner, madison beer etc
[x]Video 3, 00:11-1:02
Speed up or slow down accordingly [y]Video 3,
1:03-1:08 [z]4
[aa]Zoom in to his left thigh and his left shoulder and circle them
[ab]Circle his jeans on his left thigh and his right calf
[ac]Circle the bent walls behind him, near his left thigh, his calf, his shoulder
[ad]Circle the areas [ae]Zoom in to the boundary of his legs where
the concrete pattern looks bent [af]Mark the bent concrete pattern
[ag]Zoom in and mark it [ah]Zoom in to the bicep where the creases
look squished [ai]Zoom in to his left thigh and circle it
[aj]Shoulder, thigh, biceps, calp [ak]Face, shoes, wrists
[al]Video 4 00:16-4:25
Slow down or speed up to match [am]Video 5,
00:13-00:34 [an]5, Zoom in to the background
[ao]Mark the areas around her waist to show there's no noticeable mistakes in the background
[ap]https://youtu.be/SMhW5mGjSVs [aq]Video 5,
00:54-3:37 [ar]Show the before (5) and after (5F) side
by side [as]6
[at]6, Zoom in to thr yellow chair and circle the bent part
[au]https://news.cgtn.com/news/3d3d514d3455444d79457a6333566d54/share.html#:~:text=Yet%2C%20wander%20around%20Sanlitun%2C%20the,like%20a%20snake%E2%80%9D%20in%20Chinese.
[av]6, zoom in to her chin [aw]Video 6,
00:08-1:49 [ax]7
[ay]5,6,7 [az]6, zoom in
[ba]Circle the door frame and the fence [bb]Circle the phone in the shadow
[bc]Video 7, 00:16-2:12
[bd]7 [be]7f
[bf]https://youtu.be/C9Jg2OIZ4b0 Examples used in this video
[bg]https://youtu.be/HG4rDR77N3A
Different examples of men shown in this video [bh]8
[bi]Circle the stall door and the frame above his left shoulder
[bj]Video 8, 00:10-00:56
[bk]Show the before (8), and the after (8F) [bl]8F
[bm]8 [bn]Also, 3(before and after), 7(before and
after) [bo]9
[bp]Zoom in to her waist and mark that there are no signs of editing
[bq]Zoom in to her messy grey bedsheet Compare her head size to her waist
[bs]5 [bt]Zoom in to show no visible artifacts caused
by editing [bu]Video 9,
Speed up or slow down [bv]Show the before (9) and after (9F)
[bw]some thumbnails of prev episodes + like and subscribe stuff.