It’s Dia de Muertos, otherwise known as Day of the Dead, a holiday that is celebrated throughout Mexico and other parts of the world. On this day, it is tradition for family and friends to gather to remember those who have died and to support their spiritual journey. I wanted to pay homage to this holiday by sharing my 5-step transformation process using my preferred photo editing software, Picmonkey.

Picmonkey is a free hosted software app that can do the simple, yet important, things for your photos such as crop, resize, straighten, sharpen and brighten. And if you are feeling creative, you can use this app to completely transform a photo by erasing backgrounds so just the subject of the photo is left, make an Andy Warhol style pop art image, create holiday and greeting cards for every occasion, add text to photos and so much more. They have tutorials that show you step-by-step how to use their software, but I’ve found that it is pretty intuitive and easy to master. Their free version is generous with features (thank you Picmonkey), however, a paid subscription (runs about $35/year) opens access to specialty fonts, embellishments, overlays and the like. This is a great resource to make “tweaks” to your holiday photo card before you send it for printing!

I took a basic photo to start with, I knew that I wanted to add “skull teeth” so I kept my lips closed.

Step 1 – I changed my bone color to grayish white (and I imagine this is probably what I look like with Clinique 7-Day Scrub on my skin)

Step 2 – I added eye sockets, and changed the bone color around my eyes

Step 3 – I added nose sockets

Step 4 – I added skull teeth

Step 5 – Final product – I added a cobweb, embellishments and roses

This photo was my inspiration!