Battle of the Bulge

Liquifying lumps and bumps

Awhile back I was editing a wedding picture to include in a photo collage for my mom. It was a good picture, but I've put on a pound or five over the last few years and though I'm actively trying to slim back down, I'm vain enough to let it bug me. My thinking was that if I'm going to have to see this photo whenever I'm at my mom's house, I'd like it to be as flattering as possible. Besides, it's my photo and I can do what I want with it :)

Indeed, I could have conjured up an overall slimming effect by using Free Transform and decreasing the width of the photo by 5% but that's not what I wanted. I just wanted to nudge my neck and waistline in just a touch. It turns out, the perfect tool for this job is none other than the Liquify filter which is nestled snuggly in the Filter menu of both Photoshop and Photoshop Elements (though in the latter it's hidden in the Distort category). Read on!

Step 1: Pop open the offending photo and immediately duplicate the background layer by pressing Command + J (PC: Ctrl + J). This is a move of self protection. If I get carried away and turn myself into some lumpy mess or an alien waif-like creature, I can trash the layer and start over.

Step 2: Choose Filter > Liquify. In Elements it lives in the Distort category of filters.

Step 3: In the resulting window, select the Forward Warp tool at the top left. This tool uses a brush cursor and you can adjust the brush size by pressing the left bracket key, [, to cycle down in brush size and the right bracket key, ], to cycle up. Make the brush size relative to the area you want to fix, like so:

Step 4: Place the cross-hair of the brush on the area of pixels you'll use to fix the bulge. By dragging my brush cursor slightly upward and to the left, I begin to nudge the bulge away.

TIP: To undo a nudge, press the Option key (PC: Alt) and the Cancel button will change to Reset. Click it once to go back to the original image. You can also zoom in and out of the Liquify preview window by pressing Command +/- (PC: Ctrl +/-).

Step 5: Move to another area of the image by pressing the Spacebar (the cursor will turn into a little hand) and dragging with the mouse. Next, I shall lovingly nudge my rear inward just a bit. To increase brush size, I can press Command + a couple of times (PC: Ctrl +).

Step 6: In thinning my arm area, I have to be especially careful not to alter the lines of the dress fabric, so I actually have to drag upward to keep it intact.

Step 7: Press OK when finished and then toggle the visibility of the duplicated layer on and off to see a before and after (notice the chin, arm, and rear areas):

Here's another example, though a bit more subtle (notice the waist area got a little thinner):

That's all for now! Until next time, have fun fixing those bulges. As for me, I'm off to the gym :)