Photoshop self-analysis

Because I think that most college students, including myself, do not get enough sleep, I chose to manipulate a picture of a face in order to make it look sleep-deprived. Since I could not find any decent portraits on the internet that were not copyrighted, I chose to use a picture that I took of my mom. I manipulated the picture by painting semi-transparent black around the eyes, lips, and some of the wrinkles. I adjusted the face manually to have higher contrast, to be darker, and to have less saturation. In addition, I used some of the smart tools for color variation to lighten the skin tone and darker the background. To make the face looked washed out, I used the smart blur tool with extra strength around the eyes. I chose to add color to the background with the grandient tool to contrast with the paleness of the skin. I darkened and romoved color from her shirt so that it fit with the rest of the image. Finally, I added text.

The manipulation was done to make my mother look paler, have darker eyes, and appear more sickly in general. This was done to emphasize the effects of sleep deprivation on appearance (do not judge how I look tomorrow!). The manipulation in this context is not really harmful although my mother might not appreciate her new look. If this was an advertizement for a sleeping pill or some other sleep-related product, I would not find the manipulation harmful since it is for purely emotional effect- not scientific or factual conclusions are meant to be drawn form the photograph. I do, however, think that there should be a note next the photograph that says that it was manipulated. While I hate the idea of enforcing a law or becoming technical (so much so that I allow this feeling to override my opinion), I think that all manipulated photographs should be followed by disclaimers. They can and should be short in most instances.