March 16, 2019

Photoshop Can Make Even an Oil Rig Beautiful

A couple of days ago I needed a picture of an offshore oil rig to illustrate a post. I remembered that I had taken one recently, so I figured I’d just use my own photo. Here’s the original:

But then I decided to dick around a bit in Photoshop. Nothing fancy, just a few minutes of playing with various settings. Here’s the photoshopped version:

Amazing, isn’t it? I should note that I took this picture early in the morning, so the golden glow is legit. It just wasn’t very visible in the original, hazy shot.

Anyway, I guess this is why movie stars look so great on magazine covers. If an amateur like me can make an oil rig look good in three or four minutes, just imagine what a pro can do in several hours.

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THE FACTS SPEAK FOR THEMSELVES.

At least we hope they will, because that’s our approach to raising the $350,000 in online donations we need right now—during our high-stakes December fundraising push.

It’s the most important month of the year for our fundraising, with upward of 15 percent of our annual online total coming in during the final week—and there’s a lot to say about why Mother Jones’ journalism, and thus hitting that big number, matters tremendously right now.

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So we’re going to try making this as un-annoying as possible. In “Let the Facts Speak for Themselves” we give it our best shot, answering three questions that most any fundraising should try to speak to: Why us, why now, why does it matter?

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