Lies

Adobe Photoshop and similar programs can do amazing things when it comes to altering images. It's understandable that magazines, etc., want to touch-up celebrity images and make everything look as good as it can. But the art of the touch-up has been taken to new extremes as technology has advanced. Images are sometimes modified so much that the subject looks as if they have undergone plastic surgery.




























Some of the artists doing this are so good, that most people don't even know they are looking at an altered image, and unfortunately many people will admire or even envy the "beauty" they see in the picture. On the other hand, some photos I've seen in major publications are altered so unskillfully that it's completely obvious. It has gone so far that sometimes the images take on cartoon-like qualities. Our standard of female beauty has become so hard to attain that even the most beautiful people have their images altered on magazine covers to make them even more "perfect." And so many people buy into this. Men admire the images of women, while women envy them. And how ridiculous is this when the images are not even true to reality? There is more real beauty in the world to admire than would fit on the cover of every magazine printed, yet we are wasting our time on this destructive phoniness.

















(thanks to the awesome Swedish site G!rlpower.)

There is so much evidence that these images destroy girls' self-esteem. And what is beauty anyway when we are all trying to look the same? Differences are what make us beautiful. Listen to the messages that a publication like Playboy sends our culture, and it could be determined that the epitome of female beauty entails light skin, a thin physique, blond hair and a tan (both of which are often fake) and the ubiquitous breast implants (I find it hilarious that the women are marketed as "girl next door" after all that surgery and airbrushing.) The ideal has become nearly impossible to achieve. Plastic surgery rates for women are increasing at a rapid pace, most notably breast implant surgeries. I am not against plastic surgery, but we need to promote real beauty instead of lies. Interestingly, some celebrities have talked about how their images have been altered, and some have even complained about it. Both Angelina Jolie and Kirsten Dunst have publicly complained about the way their chest sizes were artificially augmented in images to promote their respective roles in "Tomb Raider" and "Spiderman."


















Jessica Alba talked in an interview about the same thing being done to her image to promote "Into the Blue." And both Alyson Hannigan and Jennifer Aniston have marvelled at the "photoshop plastic surgery" done to their images-- Hannigan publicly questioned whose breasts had been edited onto her body for her FHM cover photo, and Aniston sued a publication for making her nose appear smaller than it is.

Check out this article: Perfect touch-ups

This website is a must-see. Click on "portfolio" on the top. Click one of the images at the bottom, and run your mouse over it to see the image before it was altered. Most notably, check out Kelly Clarkson (third one on the top row.)

















And we've all seen the Dove "Evolution" clip already, right?



This is so cool. Click on the image.

Photo retouching for the new century, by Ramsay Edwards-McNear:

All too frequently, celebrities’ heads are grafted onto other peoples’ bodies for promotional purposes. Julia Roberts, in the poster for her movie Pretty Woman, was outraged to discover that a picture of her head had been placed on the slimmer body of a model.