- Hi sisters, (gentle jazz music)
James Charles here.
And welcome back to my YouTube channel.
As you guys can see,
today I'm starting off this video
with my full face of makeup already on,
which doesn't happen very often.
But, for today, it is a pretty good reason.
A while ago (clicking sounds)
I did a really fun YouTube video
where I basically asked my fans, you guys,
to Photoshop different pictures of me.
Photo editing, Facetune, and Photoshop
is definitely a very common
yet controversial topic on social media in general.
But also especially, (slow suspenseful music)
in the beauty community.
A lot of people think
that you shouldn't be editing your makeup photos at all,
but there's also a lot of people
that look at editing as an art form
and are able to use it to enhance their photos
and create something magical.
And for me personally, I fall into that second group.
I've always been obsessed with it since I was a little kid.
You guys know that I'm no stranger to it.
And for today's video, I wanted to do
kind of like a little bit of a part two,
but this time, I wanted to leave
(fast suspenseful sound) the Photoshopping
(fast suspenseful sound) to professionals.
(slow playful music) So I'm going to be
logging on to Fiverr, (poping sound)
which is basically, just this really fun
(popping sound) website,
where you can search through
and hire different freelance professionals to do
virtually any sort of task you could ever imagine.
And basically I'm going to take a simple
(camera clicking) headshot, of my makeup look,
and I'm going to be hiring
a bunch of different freelance artists
at different price points,
giving them full creative freedom
to literally Photoshop whatever they could possibly imagine
onto my face, and hopefully by the end of this video,
we will have money well
on a really cool Instagram-worthy makeup look.
Without further ado, let's get started.
And, please wish me luck.
(upbeat music) (twinkling sounds)
(slow happy music) - All right, you guys.
So we are here in the kitchen.
I have my little laptop here with me,
ready to select a few different artists
to work on this image today.
I already went through the photos that we took.
(music dramatically pauses) Literally there was like
three of them, and I picked
this one. (camera clicking)
This is number 3-T-8-A-9-7-4-4, dot C-R-2.
- [Woman] Let it happen,
and just don't second guess yourself too much.
- Um... looking at this photo already.
There's already so many things
that I would be re-touching if I was editing this myself.
The amount of dog hairs on the shirt is abysmal.
There's definitely some little mustache hairs
that I clearly did not do a good enough job shaving.
My hairline, I would definitely be pulling down as always.
But, we're going to be leaving that
in the hands of professionals today.
(playful suspenseful music) We're already on fiverr.com,
we're logged in.
Look for some talented photo shoppers
and see what we can come up with.
Okay, so Photoshop editing, here we go.
(aggressive clapping)
Ooh, okay.
Re-touching and enhancement, okay.
And then filters and effects, we want that too.
And then delivery time, we want pretty quick, right?
- Yeah, relatively.
- So let's do up to three days.
I will do professional Photoshop edit,
fast and high quality.
They have 4.9 stars out of a thousand ratings.
They're only $5? (cash register chimes)
Oh, that's pretty good.
Yeah, and the retouching looks crazy too.
Ooh, this...okay this one sounds fun.
I will do Adobe Photoshop editing and re-touching for $25
but this one has five stars.
Perfect rating.
And it looks like he did a really cool...
Is that Iron Man?
Give me superhero vibes.
(triumphant screaming)
That could be cool too.
"I will re-touch photo edit image with fast delivery",
five stars as well, starting for only $5.
And this one looks like it's a makeup photo too.
So this could be really, really interesting.
Same thing with this one (mouse clicking)
over here. (mouse clicking)
"I will do any Photoshop editing with image-fast delivery".
That looks kind of cool.
That looks like a fun makeup trend
that would actually happen in the community.
I feel like I've done literally this exact look before,
but it's clearly edited on, which is fun and fresh.
Okay, let me try to put the budget at minimum 200
and see what we come up with.
I'm really shocked at the lack of high...
Oh, okay.
(moves into unhappy music) "I will create
outstanding photo manipulation
and Photoshop editing for 200..."
(loud squeak) (crickets chirping)
(unhappy playful music) Oh my God,
but then see there's this one:
"I will re-touch and Photoshop accurately and naturally"
and then looking at the before and afters,
I could literally do this
in my own Instagram app in two minutes
and it's $600? (cash register chiming)
Absolutely not, Miss Mama.
Hmm, these are interesting.
(slow jazz music) It is really fascinating
to look at all the different artists
and their befores and afters,
and the prices that they chose,
and the services they offer and stuff.
I'm somebody who really believes in choosing your own value
and setting your prices and stuff,
but I'm really looking forward
to seeing what they actually end up coming up with,
because some of these people
that are charging only a few dollars
seem to be really, really talented.
And I wonder if it's gonna be able to compete
with their more expensive counterparts.
All right you guys.
So the message that I have written is,
"Hi, I'm a makeup artist on social media
and I'm filming a video
where I hire different designers on Fiverr
to edit my new photo for me.
There are no requirements,
you have full creative rein to do whatever you want.
Let your imagination run wild.
Please make the photo pretty and fun,
but still worthy of being posted on Instagram".
It's definitely an important thing to note.
Then I said, "If you have any questions, please let me know.
I look forward to seeing the edited photo soon".
- All right you guys,
it has been a couple of days now
and I just got my final email this morning
saying our last of our Fiverr orders
are officially complete and awaiting review.
A few of the artists did email with different questions
and stuff throughout the process.
But I had my team actually do the responding to that
because I literally did not want to see
a single pixel of any of these images
until they were finally complete
so I can react to them live on camera, for you guys.
I have not seen anything yet.
I have no idea what's going to happen.
Hopefully, you know,
we'll come out with a really amazing Instagram-worthy photo
in the end, but let's take a look at...
(nails tapping)
what happened.
Just as a friendly reminder
to jog your guys' memory as well.
This, is the photo that we submitted to all of the artists.
So I think I want to look at these
in the order of the price.
So the first one that we're going to look at
was the $5 option. (cash register chimes)
(rattles and shakes)
(James sighs and whispers)
Okay, okay, okay.
And for $5, (cash register chimes)
this is the photo that we got.
Okay.
Oh, hmm.
So looking at this photo, it looks to me
like it's just a very simple classic beauty re-touch.
Now looking at the scan, if you have it far away,
it does look really, really blurred,
which some people love.
For me personally, I don't,
because I feel like it looks obviously really fake.
But if you actually go ahead and zoom in on this image,
this is really professional grade.
It's called frequency separation.
It's like the technique in Photoshop work.
And I'm really impressed
with how clean and beautiful the skin looks.
They did make the background a little bit more tan
and turned my earrings gold,
which is definitely an interesting choice.
Definitely not my cup of tea,
but I do think it looks like kind of fun.
For $5, I think that this is a really beautiful re-touch.
And if I ever need my skin worked on in the future
from having a busted day,
I wouldn't be opposed to reaching out to this person
because this is honestly pretty good work.
Okay you guys, so the next one
that we're gonna take a look at is
our $10 option. (cash register chimes)
Okay, okay, interesting.
Love the white background.
Definitely very on brand with my Instagram feed.
I love that they cleaned it up
and made the photo just look really stark.
I like a lot of the brightness
and coloring things that they did.
They definitely upped the saturation.
This skin editing looks really, really good as well.
It doesn't look too blurred.
You can still see texture, which just looks really real.
And that's what I love.
But in terms of re-shaping, making everything symmetrical,
or adding really any creative elements to it,
there's not enough.
Which is fine once again, for you know, $10.
It's not like I was expecting the Mona Lisa.
- Damn, look at 'lil Mona Lisa right now.
- But, was hoping for something a little bit more fun.
- I look like her. (technical beep)
- Okay so this next one is going to be our
$20 version. (cash register chimes)
(James gasps)
Okay, this is kind of fun and fresh.
Okay, so clearly this artist had a lot of fun playing
with colors, in terms of highlights and shadows,
which is a really, really fun photo effect.
I actually just posted
a whole little photo shoot that we did
inside of an arcade a few days ago.
And we very much were playing with colorful lighting.
And this has given me very much that vibe.
This is something that is actually really cool
and hard to achieve.
Given the fact that this original photo was shot
with just white lighting.
So to completely re-light this photo
for only $20 as well.
Like I'm pretty impressed.
Now in terms of the actual photo itself,
not much was done. (crickets chirping)
I'm still seeing some...like the wrinkles, my forehead,
I'm noticing that little eyelash or brow hair
that I caught right away.
When you're editing an image,
the subject is always, you know,
the most important part of the photo.
So that should always be what has the most attention to it,
you know?
Okay, not bad for $20.
So the next one
is our $35 option. (cash register chimes)
"Hi James, clients challenge me every day,
but not everyone does that for a YouTube video.
Therefore, thanks for choosing me.
It's an honor".
Thanks Miss Barbara.
Oh...okay.
Oh my God, Miss Barbara.
I like how (upbeat music)
this is looking a lot.
I love that she got rid of the disgusting eye veins,
made the eye super bright,
and even added a little bit of little goldy tones
in there too.
And it looks like she re-touched the background
and emphasize the colors as well.
There's definitely a few things
that I'd want to tweak obviously,
but I can't expect anybody to get my style, exactly.
But I think that this is definitely pretty good,
I would say.
- I love the eye color.
- Yeah, the eye color looks so cool.
I actually used to edit my eyes like this
in every single photo.
Like I would literally go on Facetune
and take white and draw in there,
which to be fair, looked crazy,
but it is a really good technique
that really draws like a lot of attention
and like your emphasis to one area.
Okay, you guys so honestly I am pretty impressed so far
with the more affordable options,
but now it is time to move on to the more expensive ones,
so we're doing a little bit of a jump.
Our last one was $35, (cash register chimes)
this next one was our
$100 commission. (cash register chimes)
And this was re-touching photos
using 25 years of experience.
Let's see what that 25 years is going to get us.
(machine beep) Oh, okay.
Let's look at...
let's just look at the headshot first.
(loud blinking)
It doesn't look like anything was done.
For $100, I would think I would be expecting
a little bit more.
- There's a few other ones in here too.
(James screams)
(James smacks surface)
- Oh...my...God.
- I will say, the one thing I did like, the images.
Like I like the crop. - It's a cool crop.
- It looks like this would be something
that you would find in a magazine or something
and like put some text on the side.
I don't mind the artistic vision, but the execution, wow.
I feel bad being mean or negative,
but honestly for $100,
and especially if you're advertising
25 years of experience,
you think you'd be putting like a little bit more work.
Especially when the prompt is do something creative.
Oh wow, all right.
It was definitely interesting.
Let's go ahead and take a look at our next option,
which hopefully may yield some better results than our last.
This is our
$150 commission. (cash register chimes)
So still climbing in price.
(James sighs)
I...don't know what to say.
(James whimpers)
- First of all, it's...so blurry.
- It...I look like a
and apparently changing my skin color
with this photo a little bit too.
So I will say the skin smoothing,
although it looks very intense,
is very, very well done.
It's just intense.
I think they did a really good job
of evening out the skin
and adding back some of the highlights and stuff as well.
So I don't want to say that this is a bad re-touch
because it's definitely not.
Like this is good work, it's just...
I think a little bit more intense than what I was hoping for
or what I normally do.
Because it does get to the point
where it looks borderline cartoonish,
but in terms of creativity, there's nothing.
I wish that the amount of work and time
that went into the crazy retouching and skin smoothing
and color changing and stuff like that,
went into something a little bit more creative
because I don't think the image needed it.
Our next one is going to be our
$225 option, (cash register chimes)
I think it was?
That's a lot of money for anybody to be spending on
re-touching of an image, so I really...
(nails tapping together)
Let's just click on it.
We have two versions here.
One is a re-touched, just simple image.
Let's take a look and see.
(crickets chirping)
My skin is literally...
I think that they literally just took the paint bucket tool
and picked my skin color and then just drew on it.
I'm also noticing along with the skin
being so one-dimensional,
they also got rid of my contour,
like my cheekbone lines,
like the shadows where my cheekbones actually are,
are just completely gone,
which I feel like it makes my face look really, really big.
Big James, big face.
However, this artist did submit an artistic version as well.
(Crickets chirping) Oh.
It's giving me very Ready Player One realness.
I will say, I really like the background and the lighting.
I think the use of color
really does bring a lot of attention to this photo
in a really fun way.
As somebody who might not know about Photoshop,
this would be really cool.
I think a lot of people would see this on their feed
and be like, "Whoa, that's like a fun effect."
Being that I have been using Photoshop for 10 years now.
And I know how to do this type of stuff
and watch a lot of content creators
that do videos like this on a daily basis,
what I'm disappointed about is the fact that for $225,
I know that I could achieve the same exact thing
in five minutes.
And that, I think is what
is a little bit disappointing.
All right, you guys,
we are finally on to our last and final edit of the day.
This one came in at a whopping
$290.13, which is... (cash register chimes)
Once again, I am not here
to knock or bash anybody for their prices.
I am all for valuing yourself, however you want.
But that is a lot. (dramatic music)
Okay, in terms of beauty, re-touching, I will say,
and give credit where credit is due.
This is by far the best beauty re-touch
that we've seen so far today,
and beauty re-touching is a really tough job
that usually does come with high prices.
So given the fact that this is the result, I'm not upset.
There is a little bit of re-shaping,
which I am grateful for.
This skin texture looks phenomenal.
There is not a single blemish in sight.
The skin tone is even, the whites of the eyes are whitened,
the pupils are brightened, but in terms of their creativity,
I, am frightened.
(men yelling)
(James laughs)
Did you like that one?
If I had to do a photo shoot for a campaign
or a magazine or something,
and didn't have anybody to edit the images
I would consider hiring this person.
The problem is, with majority of these photos
is that the prompt was
"Pleased do something really, really fun and creative".
And, this was the fun and creative version of the re-touch,
which is literally just the same exact image,
but with a bright yellow background.
For $300.
- To me, I don't know if it's $260 better than the $30 girl.
- You know what?
I think that that's a really, really fair point
and brings us to the end of discussion of this video.
I think the conclusion of this
is that the quality of the actual final images
did not necessarily increase with the price tag
because I honestly think that some of the best edits
came from the lower price range.
- I think there also might be a mentality
where it's like some people that charge less
might work harder.
- That's definitely what I was going to say.
I feel like a lot of times too,
that when you were kind of just starting out
and you're charging a lower price,
I do think sometimes those are the artists
that do end up providing the best result
because they're hungrier for it.
They don't have the 25 years of profession
and experience to back them up.
So the people that only have one year or two years
are going to be the ones that are working
that much harder to actually give an amazing result,
to gain a repeat client and a higher rating.
And I think that that is very much what we saw today,
because while I do think
the higher price tags did produce quality work,
I think that it was actually the lower price tags
that I would be more likely to book
for something in the future
because they did a great quality job
at a really, really affordable price, which anybody can do.
Whereas $300 for a photo re-touch
is not in most people's budgets.
This has definitely been quite the roller coaster,
but I really hope that you guys have enjoyed
watching this video today.
If you did, please don't forget
to give it a big thumbs up down below
to share your love and support
and leave me a comment letting me know
if you were assigned to this challenge,
what would you Photoshop my image into?
If you haven't already,
make sure you click that subscribe button down below.
And if you're not following me
on all my other social media platforms,
they're going to be linked right here around this screen.
All right you guys.
Thank you so much for watching today's video.
I love you,
and I will see you in the next one, bye.
(techno dance music)
