Masking Faces

[Ken Veal]

I am about to take some photos at a charity event.I have been asked not to show the faces of individuals or not make them reocognisable.Should a shot merit being used that has faces that show, is there a way to achieve anonymity without people ending up looking like aliens, cartoon characters etc. PSPro X9 , Canon 750D

[Jean-Luc]

Here a few possibilities...

[csh2000]

Maybe have everyone face backwards when you photograph them. Else pixelate them like Jean-Luc did to #4

[photodrawken]

Or, you can paste Marilyn Monroe's face (or John Wayne's face) over everybody!

[Ken Veal]

Can some one tell me how(in detail) to get the effect that shows with the lady with the brown dress please.

[brucet]

Open your file. Make sure you have a back up.
Go down the left hand side in the tools menu/bar. Find the Smudge brush. It will be just below the Airbrush/Paint brush icon. Select Smudge. You may have to make some adjustments in the Tools Options menu to select the right size and strength brush. Then just brush over the faces.

Or you could use the Freehand selection tool. Again on the left side. 3 icons from the top. Select Freehand. Draw around the face. Then in the top menus select Adjustments. Blur and Gaussian Blur. Again adjust the amount of blur you want.

Regards

[Ken Veal]

Thanks for the quick and helpful reply

[JoeB]

Not really my business, but my curiosity is piqued as to why people who are attending a charity event would not be amenable to others finding out (from a photo) that they support that particular charity. Perhaps if it was a political or protest event I could see the reasoning. Just curious.

[Ken Veal]

There are numerous rules and regulations applicable to these events.Some of which cover privacy, security,insurance ,probably data protection and more.Some people do not want their, or family images posted on social media sites.I am not familiar with all the legal stuff but there is a lot of stuff.Here is a taste of some of the issues I am talking about.
"It appears there is a requirement for us to follow certain guidelines to make sure taking and using photos at this sort of event is controlled.
It will be necessary for photos to be taken either on a camera owned and operated by the charity or the memory card to be supplied and returned to the charity so that access to the photos are secured.
Photos to avoid faces ,take groups at a reasonable distance."

[Jean-Luc]

Can some one tell me how(in detail) to get the effect that shows with the lady with the brown dress please.

Your choice is to soften.

I did it with the Soften Brush, continuous unchecked, many clicks on the face.

But, if you have many faces to soften, I think it will be easier to work with a layer:
- duplicate the background layer
- uncheck visibility of the top layer
- activate the bottom layer
- apply a gaussian blur on it (settings of your choice)
- activate the visibility of the top layer
- activate the top layer
- erase faces of the top layer with a low hardness Eraser tool
It will reveals the underneath blurred layer (you may unerase with right-click).

[photodrawken]

Making a face "unrecognizable" while still maintaining a semblance of appearing to be a human being is very much a matter of judgement.

Consider this:

If you compare each feature, you have to admit that every thing is different -- the shape and size of the eyes, the shape and size of the nose, and the shape and size of the mouth. But, having seen the original face, is the altered version absolutely not recognizable as The Jen?

When you're constrained (as you are) by stringent legal requirements, you have to play it safe and always begin by pixellating the face, using a large enough pixel size to completely obliterate details which may aid recognition. This is also the only technique which cannot be "reverse engineered" to recover a recognizable image of the original. You can then adjust the pixelated image to more or less make it seem more "human" (or simply less obnoxious), but given the choice between having an image which looks human and an image which is unrecognizable, you know what to do....