The Photoshop Effect

This video exposing the "Photoshop Effect" (how photoshop is used to make models look more perfect than they really are) seems to be a thinly veiled excuse to put an attractive model in front of the camera and then photoshop her. That's good enough for me.

Body Manipulation Videos

Posted on Wed Jun 24, 2009



Comments

I agree with the one person who was saying that consumers don't realize HOW MUCH of a photo is shopped. Not only do they take away fine lines & blemishes but PORES! They changes the shape of arms, legs, hands, boobies, necks...They don't leave anything natural! Cuz once you fix one thing...the photo doesn't look right if you don't go through & adjust everything else a little, too.
Posted by Maegan  on  Wed Jun 24, 2009  at  11:46 AM
Right.
WARNING! SHOCKING!! DISTURBING!!!

Here you can see unphotoshopped stars.
http://www.spitsnieuws.nl/archives/media/2009/06/en_zo_zien_ze_er_uit_zonder_ma.html

Sweet dreams.
Posted by Unfairly Balanced  on  Wed Jun 24, 2009  at  01:12 PM
Celebrities complain the camera adds 10 pounds but don't worry, Photoshop can take off 20.
Posted by Captain Al  on  Thu Jun 25, 2009  at  09:16 AM
And people wonder why women have such low self-images.

I don't think that photoshop should be banned, but I do think that publications should make it very clear that the photos have been retouched, whether by a notice in the credits section ("photos retouched by so-and-so") or by a symbol or other indication on the photo itself. I like the latter option best, I think.

What I would love to see happen is for celebrities to say "I don't want photos of me retouched. This is how I look, and this is what I want the public to see." But I think that they believe they have a certain image to uphold, so I don't think anything like that will happen anytime soon.
Posted by Crafty Dragon  on  Thu Jun 25, 2009  at  04:21 PM
Plus their agents might not let them appear in untouched photos, Crafty.
Posted by Accipiter  on  Thu Jun 25, 2009  at  06:26 PM
I think that a while back (like, in 2002 or so), Jamie Lee Curtis did a photo shoot for a magazine wherein she didn't allow them to retouch anything. I think her point was to underscore the unrealistic expectations that the public has come to embrace, thanks to overzealous "Photoshopping" by the fashion and star mags. She wanted to show what a real woman of fortysomething looks like (even a celebrity!), without all the technical wizardry that is otherwise available with just a few waves of a mouse.
Posted by P.J.  on  Thu Jun 25, 2009  at  07:48 PM
What bugs me is how plastic looking the retouching usually looks.

As for the unphotoshopped stars; the stunt of using harsh and/or unflattering light and picking one goofy picture out of thousands is just as disingenuous and misleading. (Besides, LeAnn Rimes looked pretty good anyway.)
Posted by Joe  on  Thu Jun 25, 2009  at  09:41 PM
Some of those celebrities didn't look so bad in the untouched photos.
Posted by G  on  Sun Jul 05, 2009  at  06:21 PM
I don't get the big problem with retouching photos expressed in some of the comments. An untouched photo doesn't represent how a person "naturally" looks, it represents how a person looks when lit in a certain way, distorted by the camera, projected onto a flat plane and completely motionless in a way you never experience in real life. An unaltered image looks a lot less like the real subject than a well photoshopped one.

And photoshop is a great scapegoat for low self image in women and girls. I mean, it couldn't possibly be the way we treat women as a society and as individuals. Nah, blame it on some software.
Posted by ekcol  on  Mon Jul 27, 2009  at  06:36 AM
Photoshop is a great program. You can do anything with it. I think they should note the reader that these photos are modified by photoshop.
Posted by Bad Virus  on  Thu Feb 11, 2010  at  03:24 AM
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