Why Do You Use Photoshop?! Why I Photoshop My Images.

Photoshop. The big bad awful program that society loves to love, but loves to hate even more.

Photoshop can bring out a lot of emotion for a lot of people. Some people love it. I have clients that ask me daily "Make me look skinnier, make my hair look better, change my makeup!".. But when they see a model or celebrity that has been photoshopped then the claws come out.

Here are some examples of what infuriates people. People that are already "beautiful"by societal standards are photoshopped to look even better, or even completely different. There are tons of articles written daily about the horrendous program that is Photoshop and some companies such as Aerie are even removing it from their marketing campaign.

Image(s) Source

Now here is why I use Photoshop daily.

I am a photographer. I shoot models, landscapes, clothing lines, and sometimes weddings or client work as well. Depending on what I am shooting and whom I am shooting is what dictates my use of photoshop.

If i am doing a lifestyle session which is down and dirty, gritty real life images, I don't feel the need to use photoshop except to alter color balances, and toning. However, if I am working with a model or a clothing line or a creative image then I use photoshop to the full extent of my knowledge.

As a photographer I am an artist, the images that I produce start as an idea in my brain and I try to create that idea in real life. Sometimes things don't turn out the way I want it to, and thank god for photoshop because then I have the ability to bring my ideas to life. I use photoshop as an extension to finalize or alter the images I shoot to create what I see in my brain. Sometimes I want blue leaves and the model to have teal hair, sometimes I just want flawless skin and other times I want the freckles to really pop. It's not about trying to make the models "more perfect" or "removing flaws" per say, it's about creating the ideal final product that I have envisioned. Photoshop isn't a big bad scary monster, it's a tool that creatives such as myself use on a daily basis to create the artwork that they strive to produce, I don't know what I would do without it.

Here are some examples of my uses of photoshop.