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Microsoft Financing created a promotion for their SmartPay financing plans. To kick off the promotion at the Microsoft Partners conference, a contest was created with the top prize being a Smart Car.

I retouched the car, removing the background, and painted it orange, which is the Microsoft Financing Partners Corporate color.

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The original image of the Smart Car came from a local dealer in Kirkland, Washington. It was photographed on typical cloudy, Pacific Northwest day.

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EVS Metals commissioned a photo shot of their corporate headquarters. Unfortunately, the weather didn’t cooperate and all of the photos where poor and unacceptable.

In addition to the bad photos, the company went through a rebranding created by Giella Design and the photos showed the old logo.

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I retouched the only useable image. I replaced the old logo with the new one, I added a new sky, cleaned up the building and lawn, fixed the road, and corrected the parallax distortion created by the camera.

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Just before Washington Mutual was taken over by Chase, images for the Commercial Lending Group need correcting.

I color-corrected the image and removed the wrinkles and blemishes, as well as add a warm glow to the skin.

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The image came from a stock agency, but was in sad shape. This one was dark, flat and had a blueish tint.

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This image was for collateral for the Commercial Lending Group at WaMu Bank, before it was taken over by Chase.

I color-corrected the image, and lightened it. I removed the skin blemishes and wrinkles, but made sure I didn’t make her look too young.

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The image came from a stock agency, but was in bad shape. The image was dark and the model’s skin was terrible. 

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Ethnic diversity and a strong brand style was required for the photo catalog of WaMu images, but the budget didn't allow original photography. I used stock images.

I color-corrected the image and added a warm glow to her skin. I removed the skin blemishes and wrinkles, but made sure I didn’t make her look too young.

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Stock images can be a mess. They can come from the out-takes of a photo shoot or left overs from a photographer’s portfolio. Most stock images need work.

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Images for WaMu Bank's Commercial Lending Group needed people who where professional, and in an age range of 30-50s.

There was no budget to speak of, so I was at the mercy of stock agencies' collections. I found an acceptable image of a woman and aged her to fit the target audience.

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The original stock image was of a young model. I intensified the overall color and added grey hairs, made the eyes a little sunken, add wrinkles, de-puckered her lips and enhanced the bone structure of the hand.

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While images for WaMu Bank’s Commercial Lending Group needed people who looked average and professional, they need to attractive, too.

We couldn’t hire professional models, so we used stock photography. A little correction is necessary for stock images.

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I had to fix the models teeth and remove some blemishes. Retouching is an art of subtlety, you want images to look like weren’t retouched.

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Valley Bank of Washington state built a banking center in Kent Washington.

The Milkie studio of Seattle photographed stunning images of the building, but I had to remove wires and a traffic signals.

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I was grateful Adobe Photoshop added the Vanishing Point filter, because re-constructing the bricks, windows, and sculpture would have taken more time than the budget could afford.

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I find retouching and creating photo-montages very relaxing. Whenever my I can, I participate in Steve Caplan’s Friday Challenge, a site to promote his outstanding book "How to cheat in Photoshop."

Each week a photo is provided, and we have until Friday to do something with it. This challenge was an egg, and we had to crack it. I cracked it, then taped it back up.

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Here I unzipped the shell.

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This is my first entry, a simple cracking.

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Here's the original un-cracked egg image.

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The European Union have banned the incandescent light bulb for more “green alternatives.” Our Friday Challenge was to come up with ideas for using the old bulbs or create a memorial to them.

I think they make a terrific fish bowl.

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This is the original, un-retouched image.

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The challenge was to do something with Harry Potter's Hogswart Express.

I made a photo-montage of a train wreck. I combined several images, and added color to an old black and white image.

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This is the original, un-retouched Hogswart train.

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This is the original train wreck at Montparnasse 1895.

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This Friday Challenge was what would the iPhone look like if it was made in the 1959s.

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This the starting point, a 1950s portable radio.

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The Friday Challenge was to do something with a plain tube of toothpaste.

I squished it, squished out some toothpaste, added ants, and a bathroom sink.

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This is the original toothpaste tube.

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The Friday Challenge was to do something with a snail that was found in a garden.

I added it to sushi.

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Here’s the original snail. 

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The Friday Challenge was to do something with a pair of sunglasses.

George Bush gave me years of fun. I targeted and poked fun at him every chance I got. Here, I distorted the sunglasses, added bunnies to the frame, and placed them on Dubba.

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Here are the original sunglasses.

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The Friday Challenge was to do something with a window with bars.

I couldn’t resist it, I placed a disheveled George Bush behind bars.

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The original window with bars.