the kids battle it out

I spent a rather touching Christmas Eve with my buddy Jang-woong and his family. JW's wife Bo-hyun made a huge spread of snacks for us all to eat; I had also brought over a small pile of gifts for the kids, so they were impatient to unwrap their presents. Poor Ji-an, JW's son, was aching to know what I had gotten for him, but after shaking one of my boxes, he grinned and declared that he knew that that particular box contained Legos. Ji-an also said he was tickled by the lightsaber picture I had created for him; I told him to do a saber-fight pose with his sister so that I could make a proper lightsaber-combat Photoshop. Minji, who knows nothing about Star Wars, had no idea what she was being roped into, but as her mother pointed out, she already knows everything about how to pose for a camera.

Here's how the final, Photoshopped pic turned out:

Photoshopping lightsabers has never been easy for me. It's a process that requires several layers, lots of filters (Gaussian and motion and radial blurs, mostly), and a good bit of work with de-saturation of color to create gray-looking lightsaber handles. You'll note that Ji-an looks really into the fight, but Minji is basically just standing there and smiling. She doesn't give a crap about Star Wars; she's just tickled to be posing with her brother. I took the kids out of the original photo and placed them on a Star Wars-style background. I think Ji-an will get a kick out of this even if Minji has no opinion.


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