Who Needs Make-up, When There's GIMP

Far from shy, whenever I see a camera being whipped out my reaction is instant; I turn and angle my face making sure my stomach has been appropriately 'flattened' and hold my breath until the flash!

Back in the day when make up was as essential as my glasses-without which the world is a mass of blurry blobs; the sight of a camera was far from an issue. I had my Mac foundation on, my Rimmel lip liner and of course my trusted BodyShop mascara!

Once my 'face' was in place I would happily pout for any picture. Working from home however means there's no need for the numerous brushes and paint pots galore. Unfortunately with a clicker happy other half also working from home I'm subject to many an impromptu photo shoot.

Gone are the days when my stomach would plunge when I'd see the flash knowing my huge pores would be prominent, shiny skin accentuated unforgivingly by the flash because there's digital make up and she's somewhat of a dab hand with it. With a few clicks of a button..well actually plenty of clicks and strokes and digital-doo-daa's I can be transformed into a buff Betty!

Wanting to know a little more about how she makes me a stunner I ask for a tutorial, after all it's good to know how to do these things, I'm an independent woman of the 21st century after all! So she sits me down and starts telling me all about Gimp, a program similar to photoshop, it allows you to do pretty much the same things only its much more user friendly I'm told. It's a free program that can be used on either a Mac or Windows, thankfully that means a saving of a whopping £657.60!

I find myself leaning in as she explains how she skilfully uses tools like the 'soft fuzzy brush' to get rid of any blemishes whilst making sure there aren't any sharp pixelated edges. The beautifying doesn't stop there, creating a transparent layer she tells me how she has the option to either use white as a colour if she plans to either remove, retouch or fix dark patches; or black if she wants to fix and retouch bright spots on my skin.

As she tries to explain some of the more detailed effects I feel my head floating away...'maybe we'll have pasta for dinner today, then again I guess we could have mash...' looking up I realise she's far from impressed that I'm not paying the necessary amount of attention to her tutorial! "Ok I'm listening" I exclaim and readjust myself in my seat, fixing my face and trying desperately to switch my brain into gear.

I watch as she works on the selected layer with something called a 'Gaussian blur' and then sets it to 'overlay' - apparently that will enable her to work on the underlying layer (the bits underneath). I'm scratching my head and flicking my eyes back and forth as she duplicates the original layer, hits save, moving the copy to the top of all the other stacked layers.

She puts the layer to the side and sets it to 'hue', apparently this keeps the colouring and hues of the picture natural which is an all important factor as I do NoT want to look like I've been coloured in with a felt tip she tells me! "No of course not", I shake my head and then nod in agreement, thankful she hasn't noticed I was lost with the duplicating and the hue-ing and the separating and stacking of layers!

Quite literally a few minutes later I was presented with 2 images, a before and after-in the before I was a shiny faced, eye-bag lady in much need of a facial. My eyes fell onto the 2nd and I squealed, I was GaWjuS! It was like she'd professionally applied my make up and adjusted the lighting and then oooh she'd even made my bling PoP!

Like I said i switched off somewhat when the layers began 'hue-ing and having a party with the fuzzy brushes', but switched back on when I saw that it meant I could wave good bye to my make up brushes!... Ok that's a bit of a stretch *strokes make up bag apologetically*; I am however ecstatic that with program's like Gimp coupled with a more patient hand than mine, I'll never take a bad photo again.

©2012 Onome 'WileyWizdom' Okwuosa all rights reserved

Written by Onome 'WileyWizdom' Okwuosa

Illustrated by Ange 'Tidbit' Bayliss