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Photoshop: The Perfect Lie
The Photoshop Effect

What do you think of all this.
Photoshopped pictures got me thinking every once in a why that if I want to have get a woman like this, then I have to look like this.
I believe this is the reason there are so many people, girls mainly, but also guys, who die of anorexia.
This type of photoshopping should be made illegal. Outlawing photoshopping can't be considered censorship, since it's not truth that is being hidden, it's only lies that are stopped from spreading. Am I right?

What are your thoughts?

I'm always so torn by this. Personally my entire post-secondary education is in media and desktop publishing. "Making Pictures" I use to joke. However it's not really so much of a joke. I have done several "Self Esteem" Seminars and Talks on the subject. The first time I did one, I mocked up a Guess ad with my sister as the model using a "School Photo". She was sitting in on the round table discussion right next to the projection screen. Not a single person in the room noticed it was her, until it was pointed out directly. They all thought the girl in the ad "looked familiar".

The truth is, I feel that it can have a positive as well as negative effect on a person depending on their understanding of technology. In general when I am mocking up some advertising or a media project I usually choose someone from the company I'm working with to be my "Model". It is amazing to see the way they light up when they first see themselves "As an Ad". It all finally clicks that they are / can be everything that modern media tells them to try for. Everybody "knows" that it's all "Shopped" but people don't "See it" as often as they should.

The issue is not weather or not it should be allowed, but about peoples understanding of reality. There are not many people who watch an action movie and mistake it for reality. Advertising is the same thing. It is an artwork based on reality, nothing more.

People are understanding this more and more, especially as programs like Photoshop and iPhoto start to penetrate the masses and photo manipulation becomes an every day thing. "Pull that pimple out of bobby's birthday picture"...

These days my time is split between IT Support and Graphic Design, but I'm still fairly current in the media industry. It's something that society is going to have to start understanding, because photo manipulation is only becoming more real and faster to process. It's not going anywhere any time soon.

I think that because of our switch from film to digital our great great grandchildren will have a more accurate understanding of life in the 1860s than of today because it will be so difficult to tell what photographs have been photoshopped and it will be so easy for things to be intentionally deleted to aid various agendas. Even our press have been caught photoshopping pictures in newspapers in order to mislead their readers. Everything is distorted anymore.

Yet outlawing photoshoping makes no sense. Free speech protections have never required the speech be truthful and usually free expression involves using distortion to make a point [whether that point is in advertising or in political advocacy]. The logic is dangerous. Where would it end? Banning cosmetics? Plastic surgery? If advertising and hollywood were required to use people who looked normal; who would determine what normal is?

I can think of a lot of things I dislike about the fashion industry but I can't think of many ways I'd want the government involved. The best we can do is educate people enough to identify & see through distortion, and get them willing to pressure companies & governments to do better when they feel a line is crossed.

Between the obesity epidemic, our aging population, and the declining size of white-America I am curious what changes we'll see in the next hundred years in how people are depicted by our mass media. I've noticed more obese actors & actresses on TV & in the movies than I saw growing up and already the traditional all-white American soaps are dying while latino telenovals are expanding [related; this year marks the first in our history where all other races combined produced more babies than all of white America]. That alone is a pretty significant change just within the last twenty years. I think this is also translating into major changes in how the fashion industry has adjusted their sizing conspiracies [I mean charts] to make consumers feel better when shopping. A size 6 of today is more like a size 8 of ten-fifteen years ago and a US size used to be a UK size minus 2 numbers [uk 10 = us 8] but now that's more like a minus 3 to 4 depending on the manufacture. Then in comparing today's fashion industry concept of a "average" waist size versus fifty years ago versus fifty years before that and you'll see the industry keeps increasing their idea of "normal" to try to keep up with changes in the population. I think this tends to follow later than the actual changes but they do seem to notice. Eventually using white 16 year old models shopp'd to have 20-inch waists to sell adult clothing is going to be bad for business.

When I was growing up my family would get family portraits done yearly and there were some years where the pictures were photo editted [this was before photoshop was standard practice for this] to take off my eczema lesions on my face. It didn't otherwise alter the way I looked and it was only done if I happened to be having a break out when our annual portraits were being taken [some years I was far worse than others]. I don't see that as "wrong" just as I don't see wearing makeup to cover lesions in middle school is "wrong" [though some people rant & rave whenever any tween or pre-tween child uses makeup].

Its not just women either though because I mean in all honesty I think women have it somewhat better.. I mean usually if your a guy you get what you get but woman can customize they're look so much with nailpolish, make-up, hair, and other things that guys can't. Also another thing, girls just have to be skinny guys actually have to usually develop a good muscly figure if they want women to even look their way its just simply not fair. >.>

Photo Manipulation has been around far, far longer then digital editing. History has been "edited" pretty much from the beginning of the camera.

more info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photo_mani ... cal_issues

I don't disagree. Many famous civil war photographs were staged.

BUT if you have the original negative, positive, photographic plate, or tin copy on file somewhere like in the library of congress then that original can be referenced at will to settle accuracy concerns when a photoshopped digital version is passed off as the real macoy in documentaries, news stories, or blogs.

Case in point there was a photograph of a union black unit that had been shot in a studio that the neo-confederates shopp'd to hide all the union insignias. The distorted version was then claimed to be a confederate black unit and put on tshirts & posters for propaganda purposes. Then someone noticed a photoshop error on one of the belt buckles that faintly still stated "U.S." and investigated; turning up the original hard copy which showed the truth.

But if all we have are digital versions because no film technology was ever employed then it will be very, very easy for provenance questions to go unanswered [example. all the "paranormal" photographs on the internet taken digitally that have had the EXIF deleted!]

The ways they go about becoming skiinny can be damaging to their health, even fatal.
Womens magazines don't help the issue when they push fad diets over exercise as a way to reach their desired look.

As for photoshopping in ads, I'm not really sure, are they presenting an unrealistic image? Yes.
Couldn't you make the same argument about make-up, hair weaves, false eyelashes, push up bras etc.?
I think most people today are savvy to all this, I'd like to think so anyway.

Ever hear of steroids....? Those can be pretty damaging as well and not every way going about weight loss is damaging.

I think that the people who constantly have their image altered (celebrities and glam models) have it the worse off, rather than us consumer mundanes. You have your image altered and plastered everywhere so many times, and then at the end of the day you look in the mirror - do they even see themselves? Reminds of that Heidi Montag crap from a few months back.

But it's funny that even goth isn't safe from this photoshop effect. Sure, we're more open to diverse body shapes (to the point that goths are stereotyped as being either morbidly obese or damn-near anorexic) but come on. You can't tell me that not one of these gothic model photos was altered to make the model appear paler than they actually are, or to have deeper sunken cheekbones or what not.

Idk, half of the time I personally don't even care for how most "Gothic models" look...
As for the first part I agree with you somewhat but it was their lifestyle choice and I personally believe all people should have to deal with the consequences and negatives of their lifestyle choices.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not speaking for celebrities (since I don't care about them either way), but the majority are probably desensitized to the notion of having their image repetitively altered, merely because they're getting a satisfying response from the public in the end.

What? Seriously? Women have it so much easier? You do realize that men can just as easily customize their looks, weight, hair and clothing, don't you?

Women most certainly do not have it somewhat easier. We are conditioned by the media and fashion industry from an early age that looking pretty is more important than anything else because we're girls. We are conditioned to believe that women 'need' makeup to beautify themselves by a society that believes that people should fit predetermined gender roles or else there's no place for them in the world.

I would argue that men have it easier, but no one actually does in a patriarchy.

I believe that constantly viewing photoshopped people who are held up as ideals of beauty is extremely damaging to society in general. No one can live up to perfection and it shouldn't even be used in marketing. They should show people as the normally are with minimal retouching and not skimming 20lbs off with a computer or making a 40 year old woman look like she doesn't have fine lines and crow's feet when she does. People shouldn't have to get used to seeing unreal ideals. The media needs to get real. There's nothing wrong with showing a beautiful person as they really are, we don't need 'perfect' people in our marketing campaigns.

If a heavily PSed person is shown on a fitness magazine telling how this certain exercise will 'rip' someone's abs, then they better have the ripped abs they're shown on the cover with or it's a lie.

The abs are a lie! Heh!

For women it is merely a option not something they necessarily have to do. Men were actually the first ones to wear makeup in its first form and are now looked down upon for using it by most women and most of society. I like the idea of men actually caring for their appearance and taking a interest instead of just looking like vulgar clones that are just projected as what is expected from them and is what all men should look like. I mean why are women looked at as beautiful while men are merely just handsome all of a sudden? Seriously, society is so diluted nowadays I swear... Things are not nearly as equal appearance wise as they use to be. I get what your saying and everything but in all honesty women started the trend not men so how can you use that as a something to debate with?

Women started what trend? Being objectified? Being perfect? No, they didn't.

Your statement could work just as well for men as women. Men don't HAVE to have muscles and be in shape, it's just an option.

The fact is that throughout history women have had little means beyond their looks to secure a better position in the world. When did men ever have it that bad? They have always held the power and made the rules. They were never made slaves in marriage as women were(especially in the Victorian Era, and some people think that the Victorians were actually 'romantic'. *shudder*) Sure, these days makeup seems like a choice when you're on the outside looking in, but most are conditioned to believe that 'makeup=prettier girl' by society and the media. Women are still pressured to be skinny, look pretty, have a career and take care of a household. And we are also made to feel shame if we don't live up to those expectations. We still don't even have full sovereignty over our own reproductive organs! There are people who still think that we need someone to tell us what to do with what we have. They're still trying to get laws passed to take away our rights.

I don't ever remember a time when it was public opinion on what 'proper' men did and didn't do with their penis. Or having stigmas attached to them like being called 'sluts' and having bad reputations follow them around if they happen to enjoy sex. I'm sorry if you're feeling some kind of pressure to be something you're not, but the truth is that women have almost always had it worse than men because we are 'the weaker sex'. And we still have it worse. It's not a contest as to which sex is more pressured to be beautiful or conform to what society thinks they should be.

So many variables. There's a huge pile of studies out there that confirm that when it comes to things like job interviews, raises, and recommendations women take a huge disadvantage when society views them as "not being pretty"- i.e. overweight women lose out significantly when looking at earning potential over the course of their lives, post menopausal women in their 50s-60s don't have anywhere near the same chance at landing a position as a guy in the same age group and almost no chance at landing a position when a young applicant is competing for it [despite all the added work experience]. Even our courts have flat out said that if you work in certain industries your employer can require you use makeup, have "normal" feminine hair cuts, and wear skirts/heels or whatever else. That last one works both ways though, as the same employers can require guys have short hair & no makeup [IMHO an employer is more likely to force guys follow appearance gender roles in that regard- look at all the white collar office jobs where long hair & makeup is a huge no-no for guys while having no real policy on hair length or makeup for the women]. Through rather than simply allow people to wear whatever they find comfortable a growing amount of employers have just thrown their hands up in the air and said "I don't want to risk any bad press or litigation" and implemented some kind of dresscode where everyone has to wears pant & hair length isn't mentioned; or some kind of strict kakhi pants & polo uniform in the case of retail & hospitality.



Instead [for the masses] guys have had their earning potential tied to how strong they are instead of how "pretty" they are. The overwhelming majority of employment opportunities for guys all across the world both presently and throughout history is labor intensive work where the stronger they are the more likely they are to do well. That's without touching on the concept of temporary slavery [conscription] where a government says "since you are physically fit we're sending you to war whether you like it or not. If you refuse we'll just kill you or throw you in prison." Which if you think about it is comparable in a sense to forcing "pretty" women into sex slavery. Society at large has decided that "pretty" girls are an asset and "strong" guys are an asset and tries to force them into the service of the state just as any other resource is exploited & destroyed by governments, religions, and more recently corporations/multinationals.