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Shopped Magazines Get Scary
(4 votes, average: 4.5 out of 5)
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Stunning, perfect, flawless faces grinning at you from covers of magazines that profess to tell you all the secrets to losing weight and looking beautiful and trim. You want to look just like the woman gracing the page don’t you? Or you want to meet a woman who looks just like her? Unfortunately, she doesn’t really look like that.
Photoshop is a powerful program and someone who is skilled with it can deceptively manipulate photos in such a way that you might not even know what is and isn’t real. As someone whose done photo retouching on a freelance basis I know all the tricks, but what’s going too far is up to the retoucher, or the client in some cases. Well many magazines definitely go too far in my opinion. They take already thin, fit, beautiful models and people and shave 15 to 20 pounds off them, airbrushing out any freckles or other "imperfections" in their skin, upping the contast until their face is ghostly and washed out and of course removing any wrinkles in the face at all, even the ones everyone is supposed to have. Like, you know, eyelids. And charming ones like laugh lines.
Recently there was an article about Faith Hill on the cover of Redbook and about how heavily manipulated her photo was. So how did they take an already attractive 39 year old women and make her look like an anorexic 16 year old girl? Click "read more" to find out (or… uh… go to the article I just linked to)
This animation was originally made by Jezebel.com, I just shrunk it down to put in my article. This is the kind of bad photo manipulation that distorts people’s view of reality. Just look what they did to her arm there was nothing wrong with it before, but they apparently wouldn’t be happy until she looked like a Barbie doll. Or a concentration camp victim. And of course she couldn’t even have cute things like freckles on her skin. And apparently not even the slightest hint of meat on her bones. Or a clavicle.
I think people have hard time understanding that when they see celebrities in photos these days the photos are heavily manipulated. You might say they have to look normal in films, but don’t kid yourself, films are framed, staged, and finished in such a way that everybody looks good. Ironically the only time you see what celebrities really look like are at live events (where many of them look exhausted, drugged up and badly lit) or in tabloids that will make sensational articles about how they’re not dolled up, how they’ve gained five pounds, or even now how they’re too skinny. Once people become saturated with these heavily manipulated (sometimes to the point where the subject doesn’t even look anatomically correct anymore) and carefully posed photographs they start expecting to see the same thing in reality. It’s enough to make one wonder what, exactly, do people want from celebrities, or women in general? It’s like nothing is ever good enough.
Obligatory relevant Youtube video:
If you think that’s bad, you haven’t seen anything… go to this site >> http://www.naturalbeautiescontest.homestead.com/retouch.html and take a good look. The front page isn’t horrendous, but if you look at the total retouching ones it’s quite scary…
@Erin Oh yeah, that lady got into it with Something Awful: http://www.somethingawful.com/d/legal-threats/crazy-doll-lady.php it was hilarious.
It’s interesting they’d accept heavily manipulated photos for beauty pagents. And it’s scary she calls the site “natural beauties”.
Glumbert.com has a couple of videos of extreme Photoshop makeovers. They’re really fun to watch, especially if you are familiar with Photoshop, but it’s scary how incredibly different the photos look from beginning to end.
http://glumbert.com/media/makeover
http://glumbert.com/media/psweightloss
@Mewtalia Geeeeezzz. What was that in the “weight loss” one, the liquify tool? I’ve never done anything that extreme when it comes to cosmetic retouching for someone. Left to my own devices on the Faith Hill photo I probably wouldn’t do much extreme besides softening the bags under her eyes and taking some of the shine off her face. Especially on her chin. Which incidently the Redbook people left in D:
You reminded me of another Photoshop retouch video, I think I’ll add it to the post.
Her head looks too big for her body >->; I mean in the ‘retouched’ version, not the original. And it doesn’t look like she has anything to her at all. Barbie Doll, as you put it. I wonder what some of the actresses and actors think when they see themselves looking ‘perfect’ like that.
I’m oh SO sending this to a few of girls I know, my r-mates namely.
I always knew they retouch the stuff and all, but this is way too extreme. The more I stare at that gif, the less I recognize the woman.
No wonder I have perfectly normal looking girls whining about how they’re fat with their bedside tables stuffed full of cosmetics.
I actually did my research project for school on this subject. I find it horrible how overboard people get with this photoshop business. Faith Hill is already beautiful and to alter the picture THAT much… Well, who were they kidding? It almost looks like a complete different person. That many alterations must help TONS for Hill’s self-esteem.