Looking Good: Improving Your Online Profile Pic
by Mr. Stinkhead
Ingredients: Photoshop ™ or comparable photo editing software, a digital image of yourself.

A lot of people are turning to on-line dating and meeting people through the internet. It has come perfectly acceptable for men and women to search, select and rendezvous with strangers they've met on-line. Sooner or later, your potential mate will want to know who they're talking to. They're going to want to see a picture.

I can tell you that none of us look the way we want to look. Not only that, but everyone knows that no one likes the way they look. It is socially acceptable to fudge your on-line profile picture to create something a little more asthetic. We all know that your presence is 80% in person charisma anyway, we're going to merely compensate for the charm and personality that cannot be received with one photo.

Step 1: Getting Started
Start off with the best picture you can find, something clear, in focus, and relatively featuring you (not the whole I'm the guy, fifth row back, four from the left). Either use a digital camera or scanner to get the image, and if you can, start off with a bigger image and then re-size it before you e-mail it. No one enjoys getting images in their e-mail bigger than 30K, if you don't understand this, stop, look it up now and then proceed. If you are about to take a picture, get the cleanest looking shirt you can find, and get a hair cut. If you are working with an existing image, use the smudge or clone tools to trim down your hair. You don't need something drastic, just think one word: clean.

Step 2: Lift and Tuck
On our subject, let's call him Brent, I selected a good chunk of his chinline and moved it in closer to the face to trim up the cheeks and double chin. I also played with the shadows under the neck to create the illusion of a neck. In exteme cases, you can use the Pinch filter under Distort which kind of brings all the pixels in a bit, similar to printing the picture on a sheet and poking the middle with a long stick.

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