Curious, she opened a recent job: a wedding portrait of a bride named Clara. Clara had laughed so hard during the first dance that her face had crumpled into a constellation of crinkles around her eyes and mouth. The client had requested “softening.”

The installation was silent. No progress bar, no chime. Just a flicker of her screen, and then a new icon appeared on her desktop: a small, silver mirror.

She opened her own selfie—taken last week after a 14-hour editing marathon. Her hair was a mess. Her eyes were bloodshot. There was a stress pimple on her chin.