Photoshop Artist Gives People At The Bus Stop A Live Retouch

Over the last years we’ve seen many pranks at bus stops, but Street Retouch Prank is definitely one of the best. For the occasion of the Adobe Creative Days, Berlin-based Photoshop artist Erik Johansson gave unsuspicious bus travelers a live retouch job, and projected the edited versions right in front of them in an advertising space.

After a hidden camera takes a photo of people sitting in the bus stop shelter, the Photoshop professional immediately starts retouching the image, and sends the live images to the advertisement space in the bus shelter. People suddenly encounter themselves while they’re getting retouched, which leads to great reactions. All of them are really amazed to see themselves projected on a digital billboard with strange faces or in weird settings.

Street Retouch Prank

The project is a prank, but also shows the digital possibilities of the billboards, that are often only used to scream a commercial message. Here the message is more fun and, when taking the number of YouTube views into account, much wider spread.