Photoshopping, and why it's hard to be a real live human.

For my 27th birthday, my husband gave me Photoshop.  I'm going to choose to believe that this had more to do with my interest in picture taking and editing, and less to do with my personal need to be photoshopped.  It's a blast.  I love learning to "clean up" images, from simple stuff like adjusting color and brightness, to more complex, such as removing unwanted items from my pictures.

Now I'm not expert, but I have learned some helpful, and dangerously tempting tricks.  For example:

Here's me and Shane from our honeymoon, looking just like we looked after spending a day snorkeling and sunning on a Mexican beach.

Now, here we are again, but without some of the boat junk.  Oh, also my arm is thinner, stomach flattened, wonky hairline adjusted, and chest, let's say, enhanced.

It's not magazine quality work, of course.  But just the same, we live in a day and age where I, a total photshop newb, can make myself lose 20, maybe 30 pounds with a few mouse clicks.  I'm fascinated by this, but also totally disturbed.  IT SHOULD NOT BE THIS EASY TO LOOK SO MUCH BETTER JUST BECAUSE I OWN A COMPUTER AND SOME PERSONAL-USE QUALITY SOFTWARE. 

It has become PAINFULLY tempting to do this to all of my pictures.  It feels wrong, it feels dishonest, and just the same, wouldn't you?  Oye.  Oh, and it's also a good reminder not to believe anything you see.  Especially if you saw that thing on the internet.