Everywhere we look, we see Photoshop.  I like to take notice of a lot of goofy mistakes that are made.  These, to me, being unnecessary alterations.  There is a good point made in the article about the human body, and the parts of the body that we have.  Images have been altered making these parts disappear, weird.  I have seen so many images where they delete in between a model's legs to make them look thinner (which is completely bonkers) and it looks ridiculous.  So there are certain things I agree with 'fixing' and that I don't agree with.  I have acne scars on my face so I usually go in and get rid of them.  I understand people having their wrinkles slightly reduced, or softened, or cellulite touched up.  Then again, I don't think it's fair when these things are done to the max.  I know all of these pictures I look at have been altered, but it doesn't matter.  I still wonder why I don't look like that.  That being said, if one is making a fictional work, I understand altering whatever you want (such as our avatars).  For real people, keep them real!  Some slight retouching, but that's it.

        I found the Photoshop Creative Effects very helpful for fine tuning my projects.  Creative Fundamentals using the Filter Gallery.  There are so many different filters in Photoshop.  Using the filter gallery allows us to go through all possible looks that we may want to add to our work.  I always duplicate the layer I want the effect on, then I will try out a few different effects.  Adjusting them to get what I want.  One of my works, 'O'Pen,' I used a water ripple effect on my reflections in the water.  It took some adjusting to get it so they blended in with the rest of the water.  I want to play around with Find Edges, to create a painterly effect (Slightly Wild Effects).  It is very meat how quick and easy it seems to get such a beautiful effect.  Not sure if it will be as easy for me, haha.  I really like the blend that is achieved.  Ethereal glow seems really fun as well, pretty sure I'm going to use this one (basic filter effects).  The dreamy glow will really add to the fantasy look I want to achieve.  It is super easy as well, just changing the opacity on the blurred copy of the image, very cool.