© Jirka Väätäinen
Both retouching and photography are by me unless otherwise noted. CLICK TO ENLARGE
Eliminating flaws and highlighting certaing parts to accentuate the idea of ideal beauty, while trying to maintain the original likeness
An example of extreme photo manipulation to give a perfect ‘out of this world look’:
Making the image clearer and giving it a certail feel by adding effects:
Changing the image all together and creating something new
Using parts of images to create something totally different
October 20, 2011 at 2:19 am
I’ve seen photo manipulation, but your ability to recreate/create different images is impeccable! If only you were closer, I would love to meet you and look at more of your work; probably even watch you work for hours on end! Please never stop (:
October 20, 2011 at 7:58 pm
Thank you so much for your lovely comment!
October 22, 2011 at 11:09 pm
And thanks so much for all your hard work and inspiration (:
October 23, 2011 at 6:43 pm
No problem! Thank you for the lovely comment
December 17, 2012 at 9:21 am
Yost lovely work, please contonue your Real Life Disney Characters. AMAZING!
December 17, 2012 at 9:22 am
Just*
January 23, 2013 at 11:55 am
Thanks! :>
October 20, 2011 at 6:54 am
do/would you do tutorials? your work is really amazing and i am learning graphic design as well. i hope to be as good as you one day soon.
October 20, 2011 at 7:56 pm
Thanks for your comment! I’m glad you are inspired by my work. But the thing is that my way of working is anything but straight-forward, so I can’t really see myself doing an easy to follow tutorial. But who knows, maybe that is something I can think about in the future
October 24, 2011 at 10:33 pm
Well, then can you paint in big strokes for those of us with a technical background?
October 24, 2011 at 11:04 pm
Sorry, I don’t quite get what you mean? Either way, thank you for taking the time to comment.
October 21, 2011 at 6:24 am
hi, your work is really amazing. can i make a request? can you do more disney characters?
thank you and more power!
October 21, 2011 at 3:44 pm
Thanks! I will definitely make more.
October 27, 2011 at 11:24 pm
will you make the disney princes as well?
October 27, 2011 at 11:51 pm
To be honest, I don’t think I will, sorry!
October 22, 2011 at 2:57 pm
This is incredible and even better you’re a student! I found your page from geekologie.com and you’re Disney characters are by far the best I’ve seen in likeness! You have a gift. If you’re taking any more requests, I would love for you to create Cinderella.
October 22, 2011 at 3:55 pm
Thank you so much! Means a lot
Who knows, maybe you can expect to see Cinderella one day as well!
October 23, 2011 at 6:08 am
You are absolutely amazing! Your talent is inspiring. I found your blog on Tumblr. Please do more animated princesses! I would love a Rapunzel and Anastasia:)
October 23, 2011 at 7:11 pm
Thank you
I will definitely keep making more, not sure which characters yet though!
October 23, 2011 at 4:04 pm
you’re creations are sooo amazing. especially on the photo manipulation.
October 23, 2011 at 6:52 pm
Thank you!
October 24, 2011 at 12:27 pm
Fantastic work! Really looking forward to seeing more.
October 24, 2011 at 12:57 pm
Thank you
October 24, 2011 at 10:46 pm
Came across your blog and *wow* – fantastic! What amazing work
October 24, 2011 at 11:05 pm
Thanks a lot!
October 25, 2011 at 12:55 am
Amazing work. Please please make Snow White! You could make a ton of money making “princesses” out of real women.
October 25, 2011 at 1:32 am
Thank you! I will definitely give her a go in the future. Haha, and that’s a good business idea
October 25, 2011 at 5:43 am
Start with me, I’ll let you for no charge, haha!
October 25, 2011 at 7:22 pm
your an amazing artist! the disney princesses are wonderful! keep it up!
October 25, 2011 at 8:10 pm
You are fantastic at what you do. I am very inspired by your work!! Keep doing what you’re doing. I cant wait to see more!
October 25, 2011 at 11:20 pm
Thank you very much
October 25, 2011 at 11:19 pm
simply amazing work, keep it up
October 25, 2011 at 11:29 pm
Thank you!
October 26, 2011 at 1:48 am
I love your work and the Disney Princess Project is amazing. I just wanted to let you know that Ariel looks just like my daughter in the face and it startled me when I first saw it. lol. Keep up the good work!
October 26, 2011 at 3:20 am
great job!! keep on it
October 26, 2011 at 4:56 am
your works are amazzzzzzzzzzzing!!! how did you do that? how i wish i have your creativity. ;D
October 26, 2011 at 10:41 am
Thank you
time + passion + photoshop… I’m sure you have it in you as well!
October 26, 2011 at 5:13 am
You are very gifted artist. Thank you SO MUCH for sharing your creations to the world!
Suggestion: After the princess, could you do the men/princes too? Pretty please? Couldn’t very well leave these women without their happily ever afters. Just something to think about…:-)
Thank you for your time and talent.
Much appreciated.
October 26, 2011 at 10:39 am
Thank you! To be honest, I probably wont have time to expand this project. But thanks for the suggestion
October 26, 2011 at 7:59 am
i think that you should do a picture of snow white and Cinderella to under the photo manipulation
October 26, 2011 at 10:30 am
One day
October 26, 2011 at 3:47 pm
I love your pictures
They are amazing. Keep up the good work
October 26, 2011 at 4:08 pm
Princess Tiana from princess and the frog
October 26, 2011 at 6:49 pm
As soon as I find the time!
October 29, 2011 at 9:34 am
you’re so amazing… and i would really want to learn from you…
all your works are so amazing..
really thanks for the hard work… god bless..
October 29, 2011 at 4:29 pm
Thank you so much!
November 6, 2011 at 6:03 am
Hey um how did you do the Ariel (Little Mermaid) photo? Is that like 2 different people or something?
November 6, 2011 at 9:16 am
It’s more than 2 people. A feature taken from here and there, blended, mixed, manipulated and painted on
November 8, 2011 at 3:25 pm
Psdtuts pays for tutorials! Please do a princess one!
November 11, 2011 at 10:57 am
Love the Disney series! Great job, keep it up.
November 11, 2011 at 8:31 pm
Thanks!
November 13, 2011 at 5:17 am
Wow, incredible!!! …I can’t even fathom how you’ve done some of the pictures
November 18, 2011 at 4:51 pm
You are extremely talented! Have you ever thought about doing tutorials on some of the tricks you use for photo manipulation? I know I’d love to see that!
November 18, 2011 at 7:11 pm
Thank you! Surely that has crossed my mind. But the thing is, that my way of working is not straight forward, so I don’t think I would come up with a very effective tutorial that people could actually follow… if that makes sense
November 30, 2011 at 12:08 am
Love your work. I am totally in love with your Disney Princess work. However, I can see celebrity influences in it. For example: Jasmine looks like Kim Kardashian and Tiana looks like Brandy! Cinderella looks like Rene Zelwiger(spelling?) and Snow White looks like Anne Hathaway. Did you get the inspiration from these celebrities or is it mere coincidence.?
November 30, 2011 at 12:19 am
Thank you. I was somewhat inspired by Kim K for Jasmine, but with the rest of the celebrities you mentioned it just coincidence
November 30, 2011 at 12:25 am
What about Rapunzel? She looks like amanda seyfried.
November 30, 2011 at 12:36 am
Yes, she was one of the people I was originally inspired by.
December 30, 2011 at 8:42 am
Wow, Lianne, sorry, just had to comment here. You fail on the Disney matching. Brandy, no. Rene Zelwiger?? Really? Definitely not attractive. Anne Hathaway is hot,but as Snow White?? You’re trippin. Amanda Seyfried is plain, Rapunzel is pretty and cute; pretty cute. You might as well suggest Ellen Degengres, lol. I suggest you read something other than People Magazine
As to Jirka, great job on the Disney interpretations.
December 6, 2011 at 3:17 am
Wow, your work is extremely impressive! I would love if you created a step-by-step demonstration of how you create your photo-manipulations, most especially the Disney images. I imagine that would be very interesting and enlightening to see the process more in depth. A tutorial would be super!
Please keep up the great work!
December 18, 2011 at 2:23 pm
Thank you
But the thing is that my way of working is anything but straight-forward, and the process is never the same really… So I don’t think I could get that across successfully!
December 9, 2011 at 5:57 pm
First let me start off by saying Wow, your photo manipulations looks extremely real and I probably would have never known they were edited to that extent. Secondly, Im glad you answer almost every question/comment people have. Thats rare in a person that runs a website. And lastly, I was wondering if you could tell me what program you use to edit and if you could create any little tutorials on how to do some things?
December 10, 2011 at 5:25 pm
Thank you very much! I use Adobe Photoshop for these. But unfortunately I am not planning to do tutorials, just because I don’t think my way of working is straight-forward enough, and I don’t think it would translate that easily…
December 11, 2011 at 3:53 am
I love looking at your work!
December 12, 2011 at 10:49 pm
December 24, 2011 at 6:03 am
I think that it would be really interesting if you listed, or even pictured the actual people you were inspired by for the disney pictures. That would be amazing.
January 1, 2012 at 4:08 pm
I am not always as heavily inspired by a particular person and I usually work with tons of different pictures to achieve my vision. But surely I will keep this in mind if I feel that the original inspiration plays a vital role!
December 30, 2011 at 2:23 am
i found the link for the disney princesses and I love the esmeralda interpretation as well as jasmine. very nice work. any plans on doing lilo or nani? (I’m a huge lilo & stitch fan). Thanks.
January 1, 2012 at 3:56 pm
Thanks! Doing those characters has never crossed my mind before, but who knows…
December 30, 2011 at 5:45 am
How did you made that statue into a woman? Do you need their photograph for it? Or you can immediately change it in Photoshop?
January 1, 2012 at 3:49 pm
I took a picture of the statue and then blended it with some pictures I had taken of my sister.
December 30, 2011 at 9:21 am
Interesting. Unfortunately, I think it will just be a matter of time before the corporate worlds of advertising and publishing both completely jump on the photo manipulation bandwagon. (Hey, why pay for an air-brushed model when you can just digitally “create” one that you don’t need to pay royalties to? After all, it’s not a real person.)
Ultimately, all ‘career models’ will go the way of the dinosaur, and we will be left with this synthetic ideal of what defines true ‘beauty’…something unattainable, even for the most attractive people.
Gee, imagine Playboy being faker than it already is…
January 1, 2012 at 3:43 pm
Yeah, it will definitely be interesting to see where this trend can actually go… in good and bad.
December 30, 2011 at 9:55 am
Also, for all the folks repeatedly requesting a tutorial on your technique…Why don’t you just create a 60-second video clip that details each digital step in high-speed stop motion? It’ll finally show these knuckleheads that the process is completely unique in each project, and maybe shut ‘em up once-and-for- all.
Just a thought.
Good luck in school.
I’m sure global advertising agencies are already counting the minutes till you graduate,…so they can start a bidding war for your talents.
January 1, 2012 at 3:40 pm
Thanks for the tip. And let’s hope the latter will happen!
December 30, 2011 at 6:10 pm
Amazing!!!
My favorite are the Disney Princesses, but all of your work in photo manipulation is incredible!
December 31, 2011 at 5:43 am
everything you did WOW-ed me !
))
hehehe
can make a request, i really want too see what cinderella would look like in her blue gown and if you like, also the prince
January 1, 2012 at 3:06 pm
Thank you! Of course you are free to make a request, but unfortunately I wont have time to make alternative versions. Also, I think I will just stick with the Disney females to keep this project concise
December 31, 2011 at 3:56 pm
I am literally in love with your photo manipulations! The disney ones stood out to me the most because I of course grew up around Disney characters, I was star-struck when I saw your beautiful character remakes on Yahoo! I am dying to see what you do with the leading men from our Disney cartoons such as my favorites Hercules and Aladdin, and also others of course. I really appreciate your talent and would really enjoy seeing more of your photo manipulations.
January 1, 2012 at 2:58 pm
Thanks
But I doubt I will be doing the men though
January 5, 2012 at 3:33 pm
When I get the means, I would love to supplement those kinds of projects. A photo book of your art would be wildly popular across the board, and all these people could finally see their princes. I’m not 100% sure, but you might have to give money to Disney should something like that ever be published… unless Disney was the company who paid for the book. Just be careful what you sign. It would be sad to see creativity like yours squashed by a big company.
January 1, 2012 at 5:46 am
Your work is just remarkable. I’m so impressed!!! Congratulations on such a wonderful talent and I look forward to seeing more of your work in the future.
January 20, 2012 at 8:20 pm
ouah….how can you do that ?! It’s so incredible ! I would like improve pictures like you….
(sorry for my language, I’m french and not very good in english…)
January 21, 2012 at 2:49 am
I guess I’ve just spent a fair amount of time playing around in Photoshop! Thank you
February 16, 2012 at 6:59 pm
do you think that you could possibly draw me somthing?
February 24, 2012 at 12:38 pm
I am extremely busy at the moment, but feel free to email me at jirka.vaatainen@gmail.com if you want to discuss this further.
February 26, 2012 at 2:58 am
Do you think there’s any chance you’ll do a creation of Kida from Atlantis? I’m loving your work!
February 28, 2012 at 10:00 pm
Maybe someday. I have not seen the movie yet. Thanks
March 5, 2012 at 5:01 pm
You are simply amazing!!!!!!!!! Thank you for sharing your talent with us!
March 5, 2012 at 11:25 pm
Thank you! My pleasure
March 8, 2012 at 1:11 pm
How exactly do you make the Disney pictures? They’re so breathtakingly lifelike. Is it all done on photoshop? What steps do you take and such? I’m interested in trying it out myself, you have intrigued me so much with your lovely work(:
March 9, 2012 at 3:55 pm
Thank you
It’s a combination of various digital techniques in Photoshop; photo compositing, manipulation and digital painting. I don’t really have particular steps I take, I just work towards my vision the best way I can. Sorry I can’t really help, but my way of working is just not straight-forward enough for me to give a walkthrough
March 14, 2012 at 7:33 pm
Three words : You’re amazing !
March 20, 2012 at 9:14 am
Hi! I find ur works really amazing.
Are you on Facebook or Twitter? I wanna see ur works more often. I don’t use wordpress, so I thought I could see updates on your creations in other social networking sites. Thank you and keep up the good work.
March 22, 2012 at 1:31 am
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Jirka-Väätäinen-Design/309136959103399 and JirkaVinse on Twitter
March 20, 2012 at 10:24 am
Your work is inspirational. I got here through an article about your “Real Life Disney Characters” images. Amazing!
March 21, 2012 at 10:04 pm
<3 eva & her virgins love your work!!!
March 22, 2012 at 3:54 am
Your so amazing
I really love your works 
)
March 22, 2012 at 12:15 pm
This is so wonderful! You are very talented and I would love to see your work in person! That would be an honor.
March 22, 2012 at 3:57 pm
I am in love with your work! … specially the Disney princesses, im a child at heart
March 24, 2012 at 10:57 am
Wow … very impressive and you are very talented. I wish you could share on how to do photo retouching
.
March 26, 2012 at 4:38 pm
Thank you! My ways of working are really not straight forward, and I haven’t really had formal training in retouching, so I don’t think my techniques would be easily relatable. I would suggest that you search the internet (possibly youtube) for some tutorials. There are plenty out there
March 26, 2012 at 4:45 pm
I did. I found some 101 Photoshop tutorial
. I found it’s very useful for a beginner like me.
Anyway, keep the good work. I enjoy seeing the images created by your magic hand
March 26, 2012 at 7:01 pm
Yes u realy have the touch . I hardely wait to see your next work ! Sodon’t let us wait to much ..lol
March 26, 2012 at 10:41 pm
This may sounds silly but… i came to see your disney interpretations for the novelty of it, because it sounded like such a fun idea; but when I saw them, something happened to me. I got this heaviness in my chest, and I just couldn’t stop staring. I stared at each one until the screen appeared to be in 3D, and the subject appeared to move. There is something truly special about art that affects all your energies; that makes you feel, rather than react. You bring that same power to your photography.
Thank you for sharing your gift.
April 2, 2012 at 4:28 pm
Oh wow – thank you! That means a lot
March 28, 2012 at 6:44 am
it’s awesome…..><
March 30, 2012 at 3:58 am
I am your fan masterpice from Indonesia, Keep creating.
April 8, 2012 at 11:13 pm
Are there any tutorials you could recommend for the kind of manipulation you do? I am especially curious to know how you are able to change hairstyles or thicken hair (like the girl in the wheat field). I am a beginner, a real baby, when it comes to this stuff. I only began my work last May (2011). Please take a look at it if you want (junesnow.tumblr.com).. The first images are the newest. I would definitely love to know more about the hair (that has been a real issue of mine for a while, among other things), and where the best (free) places are to learn. I cannot afford professional training, I am self-taught. Thank you so much!
April 17, 2012 at 11:28 pm
I am self-taught as well, and I have never really used tutorials when it comes to photo manipulation, so I might not be of much help… I would suggest that you look around YouTube, since there are plenty of tutorials out there! Good luck
April 10, 2012 at 2:01 pm
[...] are so amazing. He also has some very impressive photo manipulation skills. I’m [...]
June 5, 2012 at 2:03 pm
i’m so amazed by your impeccable and astonishing works btw im reign from philippines..
June 14, 2012 at 8:04 pm
Wow!!
August 17, 2012 at 5:30 pm
Amazing work!!! Hope you can do on Maleficent:)
August 18, 2012 at 2:44 pm
Featured on http://www.facebook.com/Kemalamagazine
August 30, 2012 at 6:59 am
Thanks for the feature!
August 21, 2012 at 5:09 am
interesting and very enjoyable.
August 21, 2012 at 4:21 pm
Hey!! Your work is just out of the world and I was really inspired by it!! I have a paper presentation and thought you would be the best person to answer my query! I just wanted to know if your Disney princesses photo manipulation artwork can be classified as “Magic Realism” artwork? If you could please help! Thanks!
August 30, 2012 at 6:57 am
Hey there! Thanks, that means a lot! Sure, Magic Realism seems to fit with what I’m doing quite well
August 30, 2012 at 1:30 pm
Thanks a lot!
October 4, 2012 at 6:12 am
woww, amazing photo manipulation..
October 5, 2012 at 3:37 am
i really like this… good job…
January 31, 2013 at 4:43 pm
Jessica Rabbit would be a good one.