Under Construction: OK Monitor

One of the most famous scenes in Snow White is the conversion between the queen and the mirror.

“Mirror, mirror on the wall, who in the land is fairest of all?” asks the queen.

True, a talking mirror is quite interesting. But a question asking whether I have white hair at the back should have sufficed.

Unfortunately, the answer that the mirror gives – not a bit interested in the diversity of beauty (and with no sense) – makes the queen explode in anger.
So, this is how tragedy started in the PC-less era. I won’t repeat how the rest of the story goes.

Then, how about today?
The queens… or the ladies of the modern world will rephrase the question.

“Monitor, monitor on the desk, who in the land is the fairest of all?”

What is different with these monitors is that they will never betray their owner, even if that means lying.
“It’s you!” they will shout - thanks a lot.
One thing though. The answer doesn’t come for free. You need a littler labor.
Here is the user’s guide to the mirror of the modern day.

 

First, you need to take a photo. Take many, making the most beautiful face.

 

1. A fair skin is a must!

Oooops. Not that critical, but I see a spot.
Now that I’ve spotted it, I can’t neglect it.

 

Select the Spot Healing Brush Tool.

 

If you use a brush that is too large for the spot, unwanted colors can interfere. So, make sure to adjust the size of the brush and paint over the area you want to correct.

 

See how the spot disappeared? You can repeat this process to erase not only spots but also wrinkles and acne.

2. Highlight!
Not a must but sometimes necessary. Here, let’s try highlighting the eyes.

Let’s try using the Color Replacement Tool.
This tool helps to change the color while preserving the texture and shape of the object.

 

Select the color of the eyes you want to replace in the color slide…

 

And carefully color it over the iris.
Is this too blue? Well, I’ll just leave it as it is for the moment as it clearly shows the difference.
Don’t like the color of your lips? Try this.. but not with blue, though.

 

3. The brighter the screen, the better!
Yes, that’s true. Bright screens actually help to cover up ugly spots as unpleasant as the dark screen. Do I need to cover up the whole photo, then? Is this a truth as inconvenient as global warming?

Let’s move to Layer. Drag the layer that you seen on the screen and place it here.

 

This will create another layer. Like this.

 

Did you ever wonder what this area named Normal actually meant? Let’s click on it.
This indicates the layer blend mode and you can change various features of the layer.
Let’s select screen mode.

 

You can see that the screen has brightened up substantially.

 

Now, let’s adjust the opacity value, which indicates the level of transparency.

 

Then, do into Filter->Blur->Gaussian Blur.

 

A window will pop up where you can adjust the value looking at preview. Blur literally helps to make the screen blurry. If you blur the screen that you’ve just brightened up, the screen will appear more colorful.

 

Now.. are you done? Let’s ask the question again.
“Monitor, monitor on the desk, who in the land is the fairest of all?”

If you find this process to cumbersome, then try using the Beauty shot mode of Samsung ST550(TL225). You will always get results like the one above regardless of the photographer.
As soon as you take your finger off the camera shutter, you can ask,
“Camera, camera on the desk, who in the land is the fairest of all?”