Part IV: Adjusting Body Shape and Facial Features

Sometimes, the camera manages to capture a subject at an odd angle, thus distorting shapes or forms. Or, it could be that you are simply unsatisfied with the outcome of your photo. If that imperfection happens to be part of your body or face, you can easily correct this using PhotoImpact's Creative Transform feature. This tutorial shows some examples of what parts of a portrait can be adjusted using the Creative Transform feature.

Step One:

Select Effect: Distort - Creative Transform. In the dialog box that appears, you can see on the far left that there are many different types of transformation templates to choose from. The template that is most frequently used for reshaping body parts is the Smudge tool, which is the second template from the top. This can be used to stretch or move pixels in the direction where you drag your mouse. Click this template to select it.

Step Two:

Under the Transformation control group box, define settings for the Smudge tool. Since we only want to adjust a small portion of the image, we chose a smaller value for Range. We also set the Level, or the strength of the effect, to a somewhat lower value, because we wanted the transformation to be more subtle. The Space of the Smudge tool determines how close the adjacent pixels are affected. Similar to the Level value, the higher the value for Space, the subtler the effect.

Step Three:

Now that we've made the settings, we're ready to actually do the transformation. The example below shows the photo of a couple in swimsuits. We can use Smudge to straighten the girl's back a little bit and make her leg leaner. The boy can be made to look more muscular.

The original image

Let's trim the girl's leg first to make it look somewhat slimmer. To do this, click on the contour of her leg then drag your mouse inward. Do this process repeatedly to the contours until you have achieved the desired shape. Use this same process to straighten her back as well.

Moving pixels along the contours

To make the boy's arm and leg look more muscular, click on the contour then drag your mouse outward. Repeat this process on the contours to enlarge the muscles.

If you make a mistake, you can always click Reset and start again. After you have finished re-shaping the parts that you want, click OK.

The original image (left), and the result after using Creative Transform (right)

The Creative Transform feature can also be used to make other common transformations, such as adjusting the smile, straightening noses, widening the eyes, and much more. The possibilities are virtually infinite. Below are some examples.

Example 1: Making a subject smile

Example 2: Decreasing the smile of the woman as well as the child on the right.