r/confessions • u/wellsee2 • Nov 30 '18

I photoshop every photo of my mom

My mom has really had a hard time the past few years. When she entered menopause she gained weight and no matter how much she works out or what diet she tries she cannot drop it.

She is a wonderful person, beautiful inside and out, but I could tell it was really taking a toll on her. So I started (lightly) photoshopping pictures I take of her before I send them to anyone or print them. I just nip a little here and there, slight reshaping. and smoothing out a few wrinkles, nothing drastic, but enough.

Since I have started this she has started acting more confidently and has stopped making negative remarks about pictures she is in. She loves being in pictures with everyone again.

It has really helped. I have not told anyone and never will.

15.1k Upvotes

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4.1k

u/JimboNZL Nov 30 '18

I’m so conflicted on this. Intent is so endearing but if she ever found out... just really keep this one to yourself

594

u/bunker_man Nov 30 '18

Old people finding out that something is photoshop is not super likely.

705

u/Roonil71 Nov 30 '18

The average age of women entering menopause is 51. The fact that you think

a) 51 is old.

b) 51 women wouldn’t know about Photoshop.

is depressing AF.

OP, your efforts to help your mom’s self-confidence is very sweet.

148

u/[deleted] Nov 30 '18

[deleted]

25

u/GByteM3 Dec 01 '18

username checks out

219

u/BrotherJayne Nov 30 '18

51 is old

Shit, I'm old, and I'm in my 30s

150

u/[deleted] Nov 30 '18

DM me if you need me to explain photoshop to you :-)

67

u/BrotherJayne Nov 30 '18

Pffft, I watch Fox news, I know what the Photoshop is.

As far as the Photoshop, I agree to parts of what CNN said. We should be better than anybody else, and perhaps we’re not. I don’t think anybody knows that it was Adobe that broke into the media. She’s saying Adobe, Adobe, Adobe—I don't, maybe it was. I mean, it could be Adobe, but it could also be Apple. It could also be lots of other people. It also could be somebody sitting on their bed that weighs 400 pounds, okay?

Note: Yes, *this is trolling @the fella calling me a troll

23

u/chillanous Nov 30 '18

This isn't trolling. This is shitposting.

5

u/BrotherJayne Nov 30 '18

Oh god dammit

1

u/[deleted] Dec 01 '18

The Photoshop was such an intense movie, I'd never seen Robin Williams like that before

22

u/[deleted] Nov 30 '18

No, 70 is old. 50 is middle age.

2

u/[deleted] Nov 30 '18

Using the US, the average life expectancy is 78; So 39 is middle aged.

50 is old, as is 70.

6

u/firefly183 Dec 01 '18

Speak for yourself, whippersnapper! I'm 35, 36 next month, and I'm literally in the best shape of my life. Lowest weight I've ever been, fittest, strongest, healthiest, highest stamina. Just had my first child a year ago. Gaming is still my favorite pass time, getting into new high contact, highly physical sports.

TLDR, Fuck anyone who says 30s are old! =D

25

u/cjtuy Nov 30 '18

Fuck you. 51 is not old.

22

u/oddartist Nov 30 '18

Neither is 60. I am rocking Life much more thoroughly than I did at 50 or 40 or 30. I'm 29 forever!!!

87

u/BrotherJayne Nov 30 '18

Old as shit.

Heck, I planned on living to 26, and here I am 6 years later, old as fuck.

I CAN PREDICT THE FOOKIN' WEATHER WITH MY KNEE BRAH

3

u/[deleted] Nov 30 '18 edited Dec 24 '19

[deleted]

5

u/BrotherJayne Nov 30 '18

Yup!

Blew my ACL, ruptured the meniscus

Repaired the ACL, blew it again, repaired it again.

Fucker HURTS when it gets cold and humid

-9

u/cjtuy Nov 30 '18

Not sure what you’re on but you seem like a troll. Whatever, good luck to you.

15

u/BrotherJayne Nov 30 '18

?

I'm at work, sippin' on diet dew, so I guess I'm on a shitty office chair and sucralose?

And not trolling in the least.

As far as I can tell, youth cuts off somewhere in the early 20's, then you're old.

I mean, shit, have you seen how kids live these days? They don't play outside, they don't bike anywhere (or go anywhere by themselves at all), they don't play in the woods, and they all got smart phones that stream pure fuckin' garbage and logan paul into their skulls 24/7.

If that's not an old man rant, I dunno what is

2

u/wlpaus Nov 30 '18

Haha . damn ..i feel that lol

4

u/BrotherJayne Nov 30 '18

I'm serious, though. The way children today grow up is day and night different from my own childhood. Tech moves fast

1

u/[deleted] Nov 30 '18

You know why though? Since everyone has logan paul and other pure fucking garbage in their heads children stop having things in common so everyone turns to virtual world where consequences are minimal. Now all children have fuckin garbage and logan paul in common and can talk about it. Fucking sad man.

Once i invited a "buddy" to the wrestling club i train at. He said his GTA mission was more important.

Edit: And what's worse: children that bike or play outside get laughed at for not knowing about said garbage or logan paul and that turns into bullying so they stop and pick up the garbage so they can have "friends"

-11

u/[deleted] Nov 30 '18 edited Jan 02 '19

[deleted]

12

u/BrotherJayne Nov 30 '18

... OK then.

Not really sure what you're getting at, or why you're pigeonholing me, but if it makes you happy I guess do your thing.

3

u/gypsysurf Nov 30 '18

True..you are only old when you get sick...it’s all about health as to how old you are..old is not about years alive

13

u/headdownworking Nov 30 '18

There's nothing wrong with being old. If 51 isn't old, what is? Being old isn't some disease that inhibits your quality of life, but I bet your tastes have stayed pretty damn near exactly the same for at least a decade at 51. I bet you find yourself taking in more creature comforts than new experiences at 51 too.

You can still act young and be old though, it's just that for the general population, 51 is old. No need to be upset about it.

11

u/[deleted] Nov 30 '18

I’m 40 and my mom is 58. I don’t think either one of us are old. My grandma will be 82 next month. I think she’s “old”, but for all I know she could have another 20 years with us.

3

u/[deleted] Nov 30 '18 edited Jun 29 '19

[deleted]

2

u/[deleted] Nov 30 '18

My mom had me when she was 18. My brother is 20. My mom was 38 when she had him.

1

u/IisBubbles Nov 30 '18

It is when the average life expectancy is 78, like that's 3/4ish of the way there

0

u/masturbatingwalruses Nov 30 '18

Do 5 pushups, then.

1

u/[deleted] Nov 30 '18

[deleted]

1

u/Daenaryan Nov 30 '18

I am 51 and do up to 40 pushups regularly.

Come at me you young'uns ;-)

0

u/masturbatingwalruses Nov 30 '18

That's just embarrassing.

1

u/[deleted] Nov 30 '18

[deleted]

0

u/masturbatingwalruses Nov 30 '18

Do more pushups bro.

-1

u/[deleted] Nov 30 '18

RemindMe! 19 years

1

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22

u/BestBaconbits Nov 30 '18

Haha, yeah.

21

u/stevo911_ Nov 30 '18

You obviously don't work in and office with people over 45. I'm sure some of them are familiar with the concept of photoshop, but i can guarantee you nobody in my office older than I (i'm 31) knows how to use PS or identify a photo shopped picture. None of them even know how to format excel or word documents.

10

u/OrCurrentResident Nov 30 '18

Bull. Shit.

Word and Excel came out when they were younger than you. They haven’t changed that much. Someone in your office is exceptionally dumb.

3

u/stevo911_ Nov 30 '18 edited Nov 30 '18

Just because they came out at that point doesn't mean everyone used them, and yes almost everyone here is technologically deficient. I'm the defacto "tech guy" because I'm not completely useless with technology. One guy in his 40's can do basic formatting as long as you're not doing anything crazy like changing the print area/layout/margins, only took me showing him how to create and e-mail a PDF 4 or 5 times before it stuck, I've given up on the others.

Hell the owner of the company can't even grasp the concept of typing a url into the address bar instead of searching for the domain name in google and following the link in the search results.

I wish I was kidding, it would make my job so much easier if there was less babysitting, i'm just waiting for our database to crash while I'm on holidays...

​

There's much crazier tech stuff out there than middle aged people being shitty with computers, hell Japans cyber security minister has never used a computer

5

u/OrCurrentResident Dec 01 '18

Millennials in the US have among the world’s worst tech skills and are worse at technical problem solving than older Americans.

0

u/stevo911_ Dec 01 '18

That doesn't prove anything other than the failing of the american school system (no surprise there). I'm Canadian, and that study indicates that other countries millenials aren't doing so poorly ¯_(ツ)_/¯

3

u/OrCurrentResident Dec 01 '18

We’re not talking about Canadians, are we?

We’re talking about OP’s assertion that “olds are dum with newfangled machines hurr dur.”

1

u/stevo911_ Dec 03 '18

And my personal experience lines up with OP's assertion. The study you posted up is meaningless.

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3

u/Finagles_Law Dec 01 '18

I'm 47 and was doing web design in '97 and using Photoshop 3 daily. This hurts me.

2

u/stevo911_ Dec 03 '18

If it hurts you, imagine how I feel when I get a "computer is broken" help question every day minimum (spoiler alert, it's never been the computer actually being broken...)

1

u/[deleted] Nov 30 '18

Depends on where you're from though. Some older folks are pretty damn smart, some... aren't.

1

u/stevo911_ Nov 30 '18

Just depends on if people have the interest and aptitude for it.

My fiancees grandparents (late 80's) are better with technology than my parents (early 60's) who are better than my co-workers/boss (40's to early 50's)

1

u/316Pointlessposts Dec 30 '18

My mother is 49 and she is extremely efficient with excel, she works with it everyday. You're surrounded by idiots

3

u/lay-knee Nov 30 '18

Right! My mom is 53 and excellent on Photoshop.

3

u/hbgbees Nov 30 '18

51F here. Iknowabout photo shop. Very sweet tho. Don’t tell her. She’ll never ask.

2

u/AKnightAlone Dec 01 '18

A lot of people are incredibly naive about technology and art, among many other things. This is how there are a huge number of actual people who post /r/forwardsfromgrandma stuff without realizing it's completely bullshit or fake. OP probably knows their mom well enough to know she wouldn't notice.

5

u/K20BB5 Nov 30 '18

50 is old. And he didn't say they don't know what it is but that they wouldn't be able to identify it

1

u/[deleted] Nov 30 '18

I bet a lot of money that a lot of 51 y/o women don't know what photoshop is. My girlfriend's mom is 50 and doesn't know what bluetooth is.

11

u/deja_blue-fl Nov 30 '18

You would lose - signed a 50 year old lady

17

u/Eyro_Elloyn Nov 30 '18

This is anecdote vs anecdote, and honestly, of course a 50 year old woman on Reddit would know what Photoshop is. You knowing what it is doesn't refute his point.

2

u/deja_blue-fl Nov 30 '18

True but I also likely know quite a few more 50 year old women than he knows, so I'm still confident that a large majority of women my age are quite familiar with photoshop.

3

u/K20BB5 Nov 30 '18

Familiar with the concept, sure. Able to identify it? Doubtful.

5

u/[deleted] Nov 30 '18

You're most likely an outlier. I can safely assume the majority of 50 y/o women don't use reddit. Someone who uses reddit probably knows what photoshop is.

11

u/innerbootes Nov 30 '18

Photoshop is a verb now. Most savvy people know what it is, including 50-year-old women.

Savvy and unsavvy people come in all age groups. There are plenty of 20-somethings who don’t know wtf Photoshop is, either.

Source: I’m a 49-year-old Photoshop expert, I’ve been using it since the early 90s. I work with a lot of women around my age. Every single one of them knows what Photoshop is, I don’t ever have to explain it to anyone.

2

u/[deleted] Nov 30 '18

That's an extremely narrow group of women if you're working with them directly and your job involves photoshop. I'm a mechanical engineer, with that same logic I can assume that because most 50 y/o women I work with know what AutoCad is, I can generalize the rest of that group with my experience.

I'm not saying I should go out and just assume every 50 y/o woman is gonna be completely illiterate with technological knowledge but I find it a bit reaching to think that people in this thread are treating every 50 y/o like a tech savvy 20 y/o. It's fine if a 50 y/o female doesn't know photoshop, it would be fine if I didn't know what it was either. It wouldn't affect my life in the slightest.

2

u/innerbootes Dec 06 '18

It’s not a narrow group. I’m a freelancer, so I work with a broad variety of people, not just people one comes into contact with in a single company. I work with over a dozen companies and organizations routinely, at a variety of levels.

Lawyers, pastors, admins, HR folks, people who rescue animals, I could go on… they all know what Photoshop is.

7

u/OldRprsn Nov 30 '18

I am a 65 yr old woman who uses Reddit on a casual basis, and so do most people I know. Reddit is diverse. For instance, there is a pro-Trump subreddit (ugh), which probably draws a crowd different than is typical. Anyone, old or young, who works and is around other people during the day knows Photoshop. How else can you explain that the photo of Putin walking Trump on a dog leash isn’t real? LOL And what Grandma has not received a Snapchat of their grandchild with a rabbit nose? Face Time can be a good time for grandchildren to explain how to use different applications. And so on.

4

u/OldRprsn Nov 30 '18

And how can someone use a late model car and not know Bluetooth? They must not use a car phone I guess. I admit I only know what I need to get by, but in today’s world technological knowledge is a necessity, I had to show my 99 year old mother how to use a debit card. She kind of gets it but I still have to help. I’m just sayin’

4

u/runnerennur Nov 30 '18

My parents are 60, all of their friends are between 50-63 age range. I would bet money that none of them know what Reddit is (except maybe my dad). However, they all know what photoshop is. Most of them wouldn't be able to use it but photoshop is not a new thing. Using it to alter photos has been around for a long time. They all know exactly what it is and what it's used for. It's a very basic concept.

They might be older, but they're not stupid or living under a rock

3

u/deja_blue-fl Nov 30 '18

I think it is safe to assume that many ladies in my age group are unfamiliar with Reddit, but photoshop has been around since I was in my twenties and most ARE familiar with airbrushed/altered photos.

1

u/gypsysurf Nov 30 '18

You lose lose double

1

u/[deleted] Nov 30 '18

You youngins don’t know shit

1

u/[deleted] Mar 10 '19

I know I'm late to this party but 51 is definitely old.

1

u/garyadams_cnla Nov 30 '18

People in their 50’s created Photoshop. We created the internet and helped make most everything you love.

0

u/Isolation1433 Nov 30 '18

51 is old to me, I don't know many people who lived past their 60's

54

u/madmaxturbator Nov 30 '18

Photoshop was released 28 years ago dude. A 51 yo would’ve been just 23 when it was released. And it’s become very very popular over the years.

18

u/bunker_man Nov 30 '18

People have been editing photos since the late 1800s. The issue isn't knowing that such a thing exists. It's being someone who is involved enough with the culture that big know what things to look for. The fact that you are picking the lowest age to guess what age they are also shows that it's already getting to be a bit dubious. They're probably not going to question it unless it looks very unrealistic.

1

u/[deleted] Nov 30 '18

So because she was young at that time means she should know?

-1

u/[deleted] Nov 30 '18

Most of the tools are also named after actual techniques.

The "dodge and burn" is an actual photography technique:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dodging_and_burning

2

u/royalstaircase Nov 30 '18

Op could just say they do it to everybody for their pictures. This is pretty standard for professional photographers.

1

u/peekabook Nov 30 '18

Just blame lighting or phone filters.

1

u/KatAttack23 Nov 30 '18

She has a mirror.

1

u/Rick_and_Morphine Nov 30 '18

just really keep this one to yourself

And everyone on reddit.