Makeup Mondays

So a while back, my dear friend Ally made a sweet comment on a post of mine. It was about makeup and how it gives some women a huge advantage. And it made me laugh, because she implied that what I post on the blog is largely natural. And it's not. Which got my gears turning, and made me decide to start a little mini-series that I'm going to call "Makeup Mondays."

I wear a fair amount of makeup, mostly to hide the constant dark circles under my eyes. They're there no matter how much sleep I get. Thanks, genes. And while the makeup I wear goes a long way to hide them (more on that another week), they're usually making an appearance by the end of the day, when I take my photos. So I have another "makeup" trick up my sleeve: Photoshop.

I know it's a bit controversial to Photoshop one's appearance in pics, and I promise, I don't do any of the crazy making-myself-skinnier things or whatnot. I basically use it as an after-affect makeup application. I'll clean up the circles under my eyes, and sometimes whiten my teeth a touch if the lighting makes them look bad. In the interest of full disclosure or what have you, I've decided to present a few comparisons:


The image on the left is unedited, while the one on the right has my circles touched up. (It also has my standard clarity edits, which I swear I've posted about, but I can't find. If I do find that post, I'll update. UPDATE: Here it is.) You don't have to look very closely to see the difference.

The other edits I do involve minor cover-ups, like if I have a major breakout, and slight teeth whitening. I really only need the latter during indoor shoots, when the lighting is a bit on the yellow side anyway. Below, you can see where I did that, and where I fixed an annoying little thing where my nose ring was sticking out of my nose and looking like...well, you know. Gross. I also, of course, lightened under my eyes.


So there you have it. That's how I use Photoshop as makeup, so to speak. Stay tuned in future weeks for tutorials on how to do these tweaks, makeup tips and overviews of which products I like best.

What about you? Do you use Photoshop to tweak a few facial flaws? Or do you prefer to go au natural? Do you feel strongly about using Photoshop this way? Sound off in the comments, I want to hear what you think!