Naima knows…how to look like a zombie when she steps in front of a camera. It's already bad enough that she's the next to least media recognized ANTM winner (Yoanna who?), but when I saw this picture over on Crunk & Disorderly, I knew she had hit rock bottom. I mean, walking out the house looking like that when the press is present? Frontal flash shots are brutal, but damn baby…MAKEUP!

Photoshop to the rescue!

A quick touch-up like this is actually not that bad IF you have a decent picture to start with. Webcam pics, which tend to be underexposed and very grainy, are often unfixable unless you blur the hell out of it. And who wants a webcam picture that looks like a Glamour Shot?

Dimensions: 770×574 File Size: 81 KB Elapsed Time: 10 min.

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A little further on the Naima tract — I just took her head and placed it on this starbust-type background. The letters took the longest part, and I tried a different technique than the one in my recent CD cover example. That's one of the interesting things about Photoshop; you can normally find three or four different ways to achieve one specific effect.

Dimensions: 900×900 File Size: 90 KB Elapsed Time: 20 min.

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So I was farting around in Illustrator today and doing some things with the Blend command (see the deux fleurs example from a few days back) and figured I'd try my hand at re-creating one of those cool Mac backgrounds. I did make a little mistake on the right side; I'll have to give it another go. Fancy.