Katie Loses Weight

image Katie Couric recently shed about twenty pounds, thanks to a magic mouse diet (i.e. the click of a mouse did the reducing for her). A CBS magazine distributed a photo of her in which she looked dramatically slimmed down. But the original photo reveals her slightly more plump, actual self. Of course, magazines doctor the photos of celebrities all the time to make them look better. I suppose the only reason this instance is attracting attention is because she's now a news anchor. But regardless, I always find it entertaining to see before and after photos like this. (Thanks, Joe)

Photos

Posted on Wed Aug 30, 2006



Comments

"Pictures that lie" (including this one of Katie ... who?), from CNet News dot com:

http://news.com.com/Photos+Pictures+that+lie/2300-1026_3-6033210.html?tag=nefd.lede

Some of them (like #24, Clement Hurd) are well worthy of further research on the Net.

(Sorry about the whole enchilada for the link, but I do not remember how to do it otherwise at this forum/blog. Help, Alex!)
Posted by The Legend  on  Thu Aug 31, 2006  at  01:13 AM
Hey Alex, I noticed that in Legends link above there are several shots from MoH. Good job!
Posted by Lounge Lizard  on  Thu Aug 31, 2006  at  10:06 AM
I guess we shouldn't be surprised since this comes from the news agency that rigged a Ford truck to explode on camera for a 60 Minutes segment and faked GWB's military reserve documents because they couldn't find any dirt. It makes me wonder what they got away with that we didn't catch...
Posted by gcason  on  Thu Aug 31, 2006  at  10:23 AM
Can I just say that this whole thing is insane. The Katie Couric photo was PR. PR photos are doctored every time (an undoctored PR photo would be news). She may now be a newscaster but this is NOT a news photo and that makes all the difference. Newsphotos should not be doctored.
Posted by Floormaster Squeeze  on  Thu Aug 31, 2006  at  10:43 AM
I'm wondering exactly what it will take to create a backlash big enough that this doesn't occur as much. (It will never go away completely) There have been some high profile ones in the entertainment media for 20 years now and it's only getting more common.
Posted by Charybdis  on  Thu Aug 31, 2006  at  10:51 AM
That's is correct, Lounge Lizard! Thank you!

I forgot to mention that #s 16, 17, 18, 20, and 21
of CNet's current list are credited to the Museum of Hoaxes. That is 5 out of 24, or over 20%.

Proud of you, Alex! Truly and Fully!

Regards,

The Legend
Posted by The Legend  on  Thu Aug 31, 2006  at  12:50 PM
Picture #9
http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a172/gospeedracer755/pshop23.jpg

Come on. Please space them further apart next time.
Posted by FunkmasterTaste  on  Thu Aug 31, 2006  at  03:46 PM
The pathological part of this is that some PR type thought Katie Couric was in need of slimming.
She may not be Kate Moss, but she is not fat by any stretch of the imagination.
Posted by Big Gary  on  Thu Aug 31, 2006  at  04:43 PM
haha, and that picture even looks VERY fake. THe way they're standing, it's like there is a ravine that they're all leaning over, or something.

and one of the guys in the photo has crazy glowing eyes... it's like they tried to make him look different by smudging his features.
Posted by Mera  on  Thu Aug 31, 2006  at  04:53 PM
A picture used to be worth a 1000 words. Nowadays, it is whatever the news services are willing to pay for it and it doesn't matter if it is real or not. Not to mention, they only apologize when they get caught.
Posted by Lounge Lizard  on  Fri Sep 01, 2006  at  07:19 AM
The REAL problem here is fatphobia. With TV shows like "The Parkers" proving that fat can be (perceived as) beautiful, why is there even a perceived need for "slim doctoring" photos? It can only be a compulsion to force one's own opinions about beauty on others.
Posted by eriC draveS  on  Fri Sep 01, 2006  at  12:27 PM
It shames and saddens me that the name "The Mouse Diet" has been perverted into a description of digital photo retouching. Let's take the phrase back to its roots, eating mice.
Posted by Arthurpod  on  Fri Sep 01, 2006  at  03:34 PM
I took the Katie Couric photo into Photoshop to see if I reproduce the result. All I had to do was lower the width by .1 to .2 of an inch!

It could have even been an accident. In a layout program someone could have placed the image into a image box that was just not wide enough and rescaled the photo to fit in that box. And that would give you the same result.
Posted by Ashley  on  Fri Sep 01, 2006  at  05:27 PM
hardly an accident. Look at the gap between her ams and her torso. It got bigger in the slimmed photo.
Posted by Glenn James  on  Fri Sep 01, 2006  at  05:47 PM
Y'all never even mentioned the 'slim' camera Alex posted about, say, two weeks ago (?)... and y'all bitch about a photo-shop job- Hell with that I say, They got the cameras doin' it fo' ya b-fo you even get to Photo-Shop... 🐛
Posted by Christopher  on  Fri Sep 01, 2006  at  09:53 PM
Who is this 'ho anyhow...? I know who she is, I just don't see what all the hype is all about... SHE SUCKS (just not me!!!)... :ahhh:
Posted by Christopher  on  Fri Sep 01, 2006  at  09:56 PM
If only they could reverse the process and use it on pictures of people Like Kate Moss, Nicole Richie, etc...
Posted by Frenochesters  on  Fri Sep 01, 2006  at  10:20 PM
Then again, they probably used the same process in the National Enquirer that CBS used on Katie Couric in their new article "Wasting Away". Of course, you expect this from a rag that gave you "I Married Bigfoot" in the 90s. It's total crap!
Posted by Frenochesters  on  Fri Sep 01, 2006  at  10:25 PM
Frenochesters said:

"Then again, they probably used the same process in the National Enquirer that CBS used on Katie Couric in their new article "Wasting Away". Of course, you expect this from a rag that gave you "I Married Bigfoot" in the 90s. It's total crap!"

Um, wasn't that the Weekly World News? The WWN is owned by the same company as the Enquirer, but they are separate entities.
Posted by Cranky Media Guy  on  Sat Sep 02, 2006  at  01:00 AM
"If only they could reverse the process and use it on pictures of people Like Kate Moss, Nicole Richie, etc..."

http://www.worth1000.com/cache/gallery/contestcache.asp?contest_id=1735&display=photoshop

And the opposite? (not for the faint of heart)

http://www.worth1000.com/cache/gallery/contestcache.asp?contest_id=9794&display=photoshop
Posted by Snowy  on  Sat Sep 02, 2006  at  10:51 AM
At the start of the Iraq War wasn't the New Your Times caught doctoring news photos? Something about making American soldiers threatening civilians? I vaguely remember something about a photo that had been altered to make it look like a soldier was pointing an M-16 at a baby when the undoctored photo showed him just standing guard or something similar. If the NYT will do that to a news photo, how can we trust anything printed anymore? That's the real hell of a note. Remember that the big news coporations had access to photo-altering technology long before it became available to us poor folk. The photo of Ms Couric was designed to make her more acceptable to us, but why owuld anyone spend the time to change the faces like in the crowd photo? What were they thinking (if applicable)?
Posted by Christopher Cole  on  Sat Sep 02, 2006  at  02:26 PM
no photoshop here, folks. The second photo was an after-shot, taken after a weekend at Raoul's. He paid me to write that. The man is insatiable. He paid me to write that too. He is a lunatic. That comment I threw in for free. Hey, I'm generous
Posted by Hairy Houdini  on  Sun Sep 03, 2006  at  06:44 PM
Christopher, I think the photo you're thinking of was one that ran in several British tabloids, not the New York Times. It came out around the time of the (real) photos of U.S. soldiers torturing prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison, and showed British troops abusing civilians. It was soon demonstrated to be a hoax. But I don't think the papers themselves were proven to have faked the photo (although the British tabloids have never been accused of high journalistic standards); they bought a photo from some freelancer that turned out to have been staged.
Posted by Big Gary  on  Mon Sep 04, 2006  at  10:45 AM
Nope, the incident I'm thinking of happened before the prison scandal. It was while the initial combat was going on. And it wasn't a British paper, it was either the NYT or the LA Times. I add that because now that I've been thinking about it, the possibility of it being the LAT came to mind. I seem to remember the two photos shown side-by-side and the paper in the caption trying to explain why they had changed the photo. Something about enhancing the drama if I remember right.
Posted by Christopher Cole  on  Mon Sep 04, 2006  at  11:29 AM
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