5 More Free Ways to Make Your Profile Picture Better

In my last post, 4 Free Ways to make your Profile Picture Better I talked about how you can easily refine your pictures with Picasa, Picnik, iPhoto and GIMP. For minor editing, programs like Picasa, Picnik and iPhoto are great. They have simple easy to understand interfaces but their tools are limited. To do more refined editing you need a program like GIMP. Don’t worry, GIMP’s still free, and it’s still easy.

With that in mind here’s 5 more tricks to make your profile picture look better. Once you’re done correcting small issues with my First Four Tips, finish up your photo by Whitening your Teeth, Brightening your Eyes, Smoothing your Skin, Softening your Wrinkles and Smile Lines, and Sharpening your Eyes to give them that extra Pop. It’s all Free and each Trick has just 3 easy steps.

1) Whiten Teeth

#1 Duplicate the Background Layer

Right Click (two finger tap on Mac) on the Background Layer, where the green arrow is pointing, and choose Duplicate Layer. This will make a Layer called Background Copy.

#2 Use the Fuzzy Select Tool to Select the Teeth

Double Click the Fuzzy Select Tool in the Toolbox Window. It looks like a wand. When the tool options window pops up Choose Select (the first square) under Mode. Then choose Feather 5px (more if your picture is really big, less if it’s small). Set the Threshold to around 10 to start.

Click on the teeth. A dotted line will appear. The dotted line is a selection. If it’s around all of your teeth and nothing else go to #3.

If it’s not around all of your teeth, hold the Shift Key and click again on a part of the teeth that didn’t get selected. If too much is selected, Go back to the tool options window. Under Mode choose Subtract from Selection (the third square- selected in the image above).  Lower the Threshold. Click on the part that shouldn’t be selected to remove it from the selection.

#3 Whiten

Go to Colors > Hue/Saturation from the Main Window. Choose Yellow from the Hue/Saturation window. Move the Saturation slider to the Left, and the Lighten Slider to the Right. Do the same for Red. This might make your teeth too blue. If it does, do the same for blue.  Click OK.

To get rid of the dotted line and see your whiter brighter teeth go to Select > None in the Main Window. Happy? Right Click the Background Copy Layer and choose Merge Down.

Roll over the image below to see the before and after-

*TIP* If you see an obvious line around your teeth, you probably need to Feather the Selection more. Go to Edit > Undo and go back to the perfect selection of your teeth. In the Fuzzy Select Tool options window under Feather choose a higher number.

2) Brighten Eyes

Your eyes are the window to your soul. This trick is the first step to really making them Pop.

#1 Duplicate the Background Layer

Right Click (two finger tap on Mac) on the Background Layer, where the green arrow is pointing, and choose Duplicate Layer. This will make a Layer called Background Copy.

Why are we Duplicating so much?»

#2 Lighten Irises with the Dodge Tool

Double Click the Burn/Dodge Tool from the Toolbox Menu. In the Tool Options Menu choose Type: Dodge, Range: Midtones and set the Exposure to a really low number, like 4 or 6. Use the tool to paint around the colored part of your eye. This will just brighten them a bit and make the color stand out.

From the Tool Options Menu choose Range: Highlights and paint over the light reflections in your eyes to make them really sparkle.

If the whites of your eyes look a bit dull, you can use the Dodge Tool there too to brighten them up a bit.

#3 Darken Pupil and eyelashes with the Burn Tool

Choose Type: Burn and Range: Shadows from the same Tool Options Menu. Now paint over your pupil (the black dot in the middle of your eye) and your eyelashes (if you like) to make these parts a bit darker.

The contrast between your lighter irises and darker pupils really makes your eyes look alive.

Check that you like the difference you’ve made by clicking the Eye Icon next to the Background Copy Layer. This will turn the edited layer’s visibility off, and let you see a “before”. Clicking again turns the layers visibility back on so you can see the “after”.

Like This- roll over the image to see the Before and After

Like it? Right click (two finger tap on Mac) the Background Copy Layer and choose Merge Down.

Next!

3) Smooth Skin

I love this effect. It really makes my pores look smaller and gives my skin a “soft focus” look without making everything else blurry.  Before you do this get rid of as many blemishes as you can with the Healing Tool.

#1 Duplicate the Background Layer

For the sake of anyone who forgot or is asleep-

Right Click (two finger tap on Mac) on the Background Layer, where the green arrow is pointing, and choose Duplicate Layer. This will make a Layer called Background Copy.

#2 Blur Everything

Go to Filters > Blur > Gaussian Blur from the Main Window. I’m sticking with the default settings on this. Play with the sliders until your skin looks smoother, but still like skin. People have pores and they make your skin look real so I don’t smooth them out completely. If you do, your skin will look like plastic.

#3 Un-Blur Stuff That’s Not Skin

So your skin looks great now but you don’t want Everything softened, just your skin, right?

Right Click (two-finger tap on Mac) the Background Copy Layer Icon and choose Add Layer Mask. In the Layer Mask Options Window that pops up, choose Black (full transparency). Click OK.

“Wait, now everything is un-blured. What’s going on here?!” I hear you asking.

Double click the Paintbrush Tool in the Toolox Menu. Use the Tool Options Window to make the Paintbrush Big and with Feathered Edge. Set the paintbrushes Opacity to around 50 to start.

Make sure your Foreground Color is set to White. Make sure your Layer Mask is selected (it will have a white border around it like it does in the image above.) Now, Paint on the skin you want to be softer looking and Ta Da!! It will get softer! To make the effect more pronounced, increase the Brushes Opacity from the Tool Options Menu and paint some more.

Here’s the Before and after (roll over the image below)-

*TIP*The effect doesn’t have to be as subtle as I’ve done here. You can use stronger settings in the Gaussian Blur Menu and use a Higher Opacity setting when you paint on the Layer mask to to soften more bumpy skin. But remember, we’re people, not Ken and Barbie dolls.

Happy? Right Click (two-finger tap on Mac) the Background Copy Layer Icon and choose Merge Down.

4) Soften Wrinkles

The clone tool copys a part of your image so you can paste it over another part. To soften wrinkles and lines, copy a part of skin that’s not wrinkled and paste it over parts that are wrinkled. Soften the effect and make it look more natural in the last step.

#1 Duplicate the Background Layer

Right Click (two finger tap on Mac) on the Background Layer, where the green arrow is pointing, and choose Duplicate Layer. This will make a Layer called Background Copy.

#2 Clone Over Lines and Wrinkles

Double Click the Clone Tool in the Toolbox Menu. It looks like a rubber stamp. In the Tool Options Menu that pops up make the brush big enough to paint over lines and wrinkles, and feathered by at least a few pixels. Set Alignment to None.

Hold the Control Key and click on a part of your image that is a similar color to the area around your lines and wrinkles. This sets the “source” or the part that is copied. Now “stamp” (paste) over the wrinkles by clicking on them.

You may need to re set the source to keep the color matched. Just hold Control and Click again on a more appropriately colored part of skin.

#3 Make it look Natural

So now you’re thinking I’m a hypocrite. In the last Trick I told you not to soften your skin too much because it doesn’t look real. Now I tell you to stamp out all the lines on your face. I know it doesn’t look natural now, but we’re getting to that.

In the Layers Dialogue lower the Opacity of the Background Copy Layer with the Opacity Slider (circled in Blue in the image above). 40% worked out for well for this picture. See? Now the lines are back on your face, they just look less harsh.

See the Difference? (Well, you will if you roll over the picture below)-

All done with this tip? Right Click (two-finger tap on Mac) on the Background Copy Layer Icon and choose Merge Down.

5) Sharpen Eyes

Photographers always try to get a person’s eyes in focus b/c it’s the most important part of the picture. You can’t fix a blurry picture but you can make your eyes a little more crisp and sharp looking.

#1 Duplicate the Background Layer

But you already knew that.

Right Click (two finger tap on Mac) on the Background Layer, where the green arrow is pointing, and choose Duplicate Layer. This will make a Layer called Background Copy.

#2 Sharpen Everything

Go to Filters > Enhance > Unsharp Maks in the Main Window. Your settings will vary a lot depending on the picture. Play with the settings until the preview looks sharp but not weird. Click OK.

#3 Un-Sharpen Skin

We went through some effort to soften the skin in the picture and we want to keep it that way.

Right Click (two-finger tap on Mac) on the Background Copy Layer Icon and choose Add Layer Mask. In the Options Window that pops up choose Black (full transparency).

Double click the Paintbrush Tool in the Toolox Menu. Use the Tool Options Window to make the Paintbrush big enough to paint your eyes and with Feathered Edge. Set the paintbrushes Opacity to around 50 to start.

Make sure your Foreground Color is set to White. Make sure your Layer Mask is selected (it ill have a white border around it). Now Paint over your eyes to make them sharper.

In this example I painted a bit of my hair too and my eyebrows. It looks nice since they frame your eyes.

Check it out!! Roll over the image below to see the before and after-

Like it? Right click on the Background Copy Layer Icon and choose Merge Down. You’re all done!

Before and After-

Roll over the image below to see the before and after of all 5 tricks.

That’s it! 5 easy ways to make your profile picture for Facebook, Twitter or anything else that much better.

There’s so much more coming up I can’t even pick something to tell you about. Keep up with all the excitement by Subscribing to Pare and Focus. 

Related posts:

1. 4 Free Ways to Make Your Profile Picture Better
2. Remove Blemishes with a Free Photo Editor
3. Layer Masks in GIMP the Free Photo Editor
4. Free Social Media Icons in a Picture Frame