Beauty is in the eye... perfection on the mouse of the retoucher

Another post on self-esteem and media pressure.

After reading an article on how 'horrible' actress Kim Kardashian looked in an unphotoshopped image from a photoshooting for a magazine cover (image was released by mistake, then rapidly deleted from the website yet not fast enough) and reading the comments below, it got me thinking and I thought why not give photoshop a chance to be explored.

http://www.popcrunch.com/kim-k.....lmay-2009/

Photography is one of my hobbies so yes, I am used to retouching. However, I have never EVER changed one of my model's bodies and/or faces. At most I might have erased a pimple or two and that just because it distracted the viewer from the main focus -or because the model asked me to. So this was totally new to me.

I browsed one of my favourite sites for publishing photographs and looked for a stock photograph (which allows others to change them) of a girl wearing a bikini or something tight and then started changing her into a so-called perfect body.

I'm no expert and it took me only like half an hour to slim her waist, arms and hips, enhance her breasts, erase beauty marks, lighten shadows, lengthen the legs (though I wish I had been wiser since I left the calves unchanged, which makes her look disproportionate), make her hair fuller and lighten the whole image.

Imagine what an expert can do with three hours per image and a lot of knowledge and patience.

And I'm not saying a woman cannot have a fit, lean, muscular yet not too much body. Genetics, a healthy diet and working out work wonders.They exist. I've met them, in real life. But that doesn't mean every single celebrity is cellullite free, has the most perfect skin or doesn't get a muffin top even when she bends down.

I wish they would stop retouching the models so much. Retouching a photograph will almost always help a model look better, but when you start slimming her hips down, I think you are just losing respect for her. AND if she asks you to do that, she doesn't respect nor love herself either, or at least not completely, and probably she's just asking because she wants to look like all the other unrealistic models and not stand out from the mediatic crowd.

If you were an aspiring model, why would you want to look uglier than your fellow competitors? Or if you were an actress? Or a singer? I can understand why none of them wants to be the first one to change this. It must be scary showing the world that you do not look like what you've been showing before. It must be scary to tell the world 'hey, remember all those pictures of uber beautiful, impossible me? well, they were fake. I'm still pretty, just not like a Barbie'. But I wish they would do that. I wish Cameron Diaz (to name someone) would start accepting that she is in her forties and her stomach can't look like a teenager's, no matter how hard she hits the gym. And I wish PEOPLE would start accepting that too, and stop demanding famous women to look like what they are not.

Note: I do NOT think there was anything wrong with the original shape of the model and just used her like I could have used any other girl.

Credits go to the photographer and model http://lilith-stock.deviantart.....#038;qo=17

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13 years ago

CocoLion

(website)

Veteran

What an interesting discussion. When I look at both of the "befores" -- Kim Kardashian and your model -- I think they look a lot more like me. Not overweight, but not skinny either. In the photo shopped pictures they look "perfect" and make me feel like I could never look like that. They look "perfect" because they retain their busts and the nice skin quality that having a little weight gives you. (Being very very thin like some models can make them look unhealthy/older in the face/neck/arms/bust.) Yet their waists and hips and legs are very thin without looking bony. A look which might only be achieved with photo shop.

jayne

That is amazing, and so depressing. I already have trouble trying to find inspiration in the media for my curves! With this so easy, no wonder girls have eating disorders. Sad, ethics are needed!

They even retouched her skin, on her legs!

Meredith1953

Wow! A real eye opener. I am always sort of shocked as well as sad that photoshopping and retouching seems to be just sort of the way things are done!

Claudia

Have you seen Fotoshop by Adobé? Funny!

http://vimeo.com/34813864

christieanne

It is sad how much photoshop is used when it is completely unneeded. I admire the few actresses who have been willing to do magazines without it (Kate Blanchett did a cover last year) and feel like part of the backlash against the fake images that Madison Ave/etc. are feeding our society is a lot of folks who just "give up" because they can't meet those expectations. And girls (and young men) who have eating disorders. And adults who feel that they must do crazy things to wear the right fashions.
Photographers can do so much with filters and lighting, and makeup artists can cover a vein or spot, etc. Is Photoshop putting their talents behind us? Not to say that a makeup-free , non-lighted face or body can't be appreciated but I understand using some advantages to put your best visage out there.
When a model who is a size 0,2,4, etc. is getting slimmed down by photoshop, that's when we have gone over the edge. What would the world be like if we showed the natural beauty of all sizes, shapes and colors? Thanks Lemonade for the food for thought.

lyn*

For my residency portfolio pictures for the interview, someone asked me if I wanted to get my pictures photoshopped. I lol. No.

It's ridiculous that it's not only models that are "supposed" to look so "great" ... it's every day normal people too. Ugh. I can dress to minimize my jiggle, but that's as far as it's going.

Fruitful

This is very interesting, thanks for posting, Lemonade. Amazing it was so easy for you to adjust that woman's shape.

In Tina Fey's autobiography she talks about Photoshop. She's not against it in principle but didn't agree with the extremes; like, taking shadow away from under her eyes that made her face lose its dimension and character, and probably the sorts of things mentioned here. She says her best Photoshop ever was by Bust magazine, presumably because they did enough to make it look polished but not to change her shape. As you say, that indicates a lack of respect for the subject.

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