Photographer: Scott McClurg

Camera: Nikon D1X

Lens: 17-35mm zoom

ISO: 200

Shutter: 1/250

Aperture: F11

I shot this picture for a story on the Atkins diet for our food page. I wanted to show how the diet used high protein to trim the waistline. I also wanted to have a little fun with it, so I used the photo software Photoshop to create a more dramatic effect on the waistline of my model.

After taking a simple photo of the model with the waistline tape, plus the T-bone and turkey leg I cooked before coming to work, I used Photoshop to put the squeeze on the model’s waistline. Photoshop has several filters that will distort, blur and pinch a selected area. They can be fun tools to use, but only in certain circumstances.

While we use Photoshop daily to work photos, we do not use the effects that I utilized for this illustration. The software is amazingly powerful and we can do just about anything as far as manipulating a photo or combining photos. Nearly all newspapers, however, including the Journal-World, only use such manipulations for illustrations and label them as such.

— “Behind the Lens” is an ongoing weekly series that features an image selected by the Journal-World photo staff that previously ran in the newspaper or online. Wondering how a certain picture was created? Nominate it for “Behind the Lens” by contacting chief photographer Mike Yoder at 832-7141 or myoder@ljworld.com.