Abra Cadabra

If you're the one who's always taking pictures of your family, you may likely be absent from a lot of photos.  That's the case for me, anyway.  Sometimes I wish I'd have more pictures of me with my family, but then when someone else grabs the camera - I rarely feel "camera ready."

I'm not very photogenic, but I've realized that my daughter doesn't care about that. 
One day she's look back at her gazillion photobooks and will wonder why Mommy's not in many of the pictures.  That makes me sad to think about, so I've decided to get over myself and become friendly with Photo Editing tools. Like the Touch-Up pre-sets in Picnik.  (I think you have to be a premium member for those tools - but they are lifesavers...and it only costs $2 per month.)

Here's an example:

The picture on the left was taken at the end of the day, when I had no make up left on my face and was looking pretty darn ragged.

The picture on the right I gave myself a mini-makeover:

added mascara, airbrushed my face, touched up my highlights, got a spray tan, added lip color and smoothed out some wrinkles.  Just a few clicks and voila....a picture that was a little easier to stomach than the original.

I did the same for my mom.  My dad took a picture of her without any notice.

I played around a bit and got this....

(These are my first attempts and they're a little sloppy.  I'm getting better with practice.)

And I will say that I don't (and won't) "fix" all my pictures like that.  I think it's important to look real in our photos.  Just every now and then, a little enhancement can make an unusable photo - usable.

* I almost never re-touch Gianna. There were a couple of times when she had a scratch on her face that I airburshed it on a few photos.  Early on a amped up the blue in her eyes - which was a beautiful blue - but it wasn't Gianna Blue. I don't want her to ever think that her mom doesn't think she's not good enough just the way she is.