Eye-Opening Photoshop

The point of a good Photoshopping is for people to not be able to tell that it's Photoshopped. In this one case, however, I'm just so pleased with the subtleness of the job I did that I can't help but show it off.

A few days ago I went looking for a new Facebook profile pic. People probably see me far more often on Facebook than they do in real life, so a good profile pic is a reflection of myself to the world.

Here's the original image I got:

It's a good enough close-up picture taken last month, but I couldn't get over the face that my right eye seems a bit sleepier than the other. Enter Photoshop.

I made a selection around the right eye with the Polygonal Lasso Tool, promoted to another layer, then stretched it vertically to increase hight by around 25%.

The other issue is that there's a reflection of lights on my left eye that isn't present on the right eye. So... Selection around the pupil of my left eye with a few pixels of feathering, then copy it on top of my right eye. Then decrease opacity a bit to make it more subtle.

Finished picture:

Of course, there is probably no one that would perceive the difference in the 50x50 image on people's news feeds, or even the 180x120 image on my profile page. But... yeah.

Philippines High-resolution Satellite Imagery on Google Earth - April 2011

Here's a map of the high-resolution satellite imagery of the Philippines that's available on Google Earth as of April 2011. Areas in red have high-res coverage.

Some background-- seav made some maps like this before, but it's been a few years and I felt like seeing what the coverage looks like today.

Compare this with what the coverage looked like in June 2006 or March 2007.

Note, in Google Earth you can more clearly see which areas are available in high-resolution by clicking the historical imagery button.

The top 40 most populous cities and municipalities in the Philippines all have high-res coverage. The largest uncovered cities are poor Cabanatuan in Nueva Ecija (rank 44, population 259,267), Marawi in Lanao del Sur (rank 67, population 177,391), and Valencia City in Bukidnon (rank 71, population 162,745).

Also notably lacking high-res coverage are the tourist spots of Boracay and Panglao/Tagbilaran.

Still, 54.7% of the Philippines' total land area is covered, including 65.9% on the island of Luzon. That's more than half! What a glorious age we live in.