She is definitely 'shopped to the max. I did some modeling back in the 70s, so I am very familiar with some of the tricks the photogs use. Back in the day there was no Photoshop and models weren't so doggoned skinny!

Too funny. My sister is a film editor and when she watches movies, all she sees is the transitions from scene to scene. It's an occupational hazard...

Typography geeks all over had a collective meltdown at the use of Papyrus as the font for the credits in Avatar. Did the rest of the free world notice? Probably not for a moment.

Also, some movie that I can't remember had some kind of font anachronism that caused an uproar. I can't remember what it was. This is just an example, but it was similar: The movie was set in the 30's, but used Helvetica on all the signage, even though Helvetica wasn't invented until the late 50's. It REALLY peeved off a lot of people that so much thought was put into the authenticity of costume, but not the authenticity of type.

Yes, I read a lot about fonts.

That model looks bizarre.

And the link Maya posted? I think the unretouched version (or, more likely, the less-photoshopped version) looks about a million, billion times better than the crazy photoshopped one.

It does Mary! That model looked perfect the way she was. Slender but healthy, and still gorgeous despite the lack of retouching. I would be a very happy camper to look like she does naturally.

I am pretty sure that model was a character on The City or whatever that MTV show was/is with Whitney Port and Olivia Palermo (sp?). She was a side character fighting with her model boyfriend when Whitney told her he was unfaithful after seeing him at a party or something. (Forgive me, I had a brief 4 episode or so fascination with this show. I don't get much English language television here...) She looked normal model skinny on the show. That photo is just bizarro.

The other thing that makes me not want to buy something is when the model looks utterly MISERABLE wearing it. I'm talking facial expression. Pouty, sultry, fierce - okay. Wretched? Not so much.

I think Anthropologie has the right idea: Mannequins/dress forms.

OT: Maya, my dad managed the Dept of Defense printing for years, and started back in the day when they used ink and presses, and even had his own ink print shop set up in the garage for awhile (complete with two presses and drawers and drawers of typeface!). He is very particular about fonts and print type and picks up on those same things like you do. It's fascinating, really.

I often get a giggle out of the captions on the Photoshop Disaster website: http://www.psdisasters.com/ - Ralph Lauren is a repeat offender for weird fun-house mirror distortions in their ads. But plenty of bad photoshopping is done in cheaper catalogues and products - too many hands, or missing limbs. I can hardly believe no-one spots these things, or that they do spot them but don't care enough to fix it! And yet there are so many...

That model looks like a doll. I like it when models have more natural looking shapes. It gives me a better idea how the clothes will fit on a body. While I understand a site is trying to show you the clothes, it helps to have them with some curves, even better the closer the model is to my shape.

This reminds me too of how some knitting pattern books take photos to disguise the fact that the knitted sample doesn't fit the model. Unlike mass-produced clothes, you can't just grab another size of the item. They'll use a bulldog clip to gather in excess material in the back where you can't see it, or have her twist and turn on a rock to make the neckline sit right. And so after you've knitted it, it looks nothing like the photo even though you made it right and picked the correct size and everything.

I own an advertising agency and Photoshop is part of my daily life, yet I still can get swept away by the perfect images (not Una's example) that I see in the print media. There are some masterful artists working magic...and lots of people, including me, sometimes, who want to buy the ideal they are selling. It is insidious.