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Quantifying retouched/Photoshopped images: Can ya’ see the real me?


lilly_w

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<p>Much has been made about the impact of heavily retouched photos on self-image amongst women/girls (though males are not excluded by any means). A Dartmouth College computer science prof has developed an algorithm to determine the extent of retouching. Could we be headed for legislation requiring 'truth in editing'? This New York Times article (<em>Photoshopped or Not? A Tool to Tell</em>) expounds on the subject <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/29/technology/software-to-rate-how-drastically-photos-are-retouched.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=photoshop&st=cse">here</a>. And for eye-popping before/after images see <a href="http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/farid/downloads/publications/pnas11/">this page</a>.</p>

<p>Tangential is the prominent role parents ought to play in educating children about retouching and modeling healthy self-esteem. Many parents, however, are too busy playing the game.</p>

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That stuff is bio physiology, it can't be changed ever. Let alone with a silly news article or some software program.

 

It would be like trying to convince girls and women that dim witted, broke, and unemployed men are attractive.

 

Not going to happen.

 

Its hardly a game, attractiveness is a reproductive trait. 5000 generations of ancestors have selected mates upon traits

they find attractive. You can't change it. (without another 5000 generations of selective reproduction).

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<p>Attractiveness is a reproductive trait and it is subjective. The hyper sexualization of woman and children in beauty culture has nothing to do with that. I would argue that using the imagery of people to subvert self-esteem in the viewer has a negative impact. This is a subtle form of propaganda that would be lost on most as it has become "normal" in our entertainment culture. Celebrating beauty is wonderful, and subjective. Using beauty-myth to sell useless products to people through subverting self-esteem... not so much.</p>
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<p>Whoa.</p>

<blockquote>

<p>Its hardly a game, attractiveness is a reproductive trait. 5000 generations of ancestors have selected mates upon traits they find attractive. You can't change it. (without another 5000 generations of selective reproduction).</p>

</blockquote>

<p>I think the point is that these 5000 generations of natural selection or whatnot are being manipulated, in only the last few decades, by what the advertising industry is able to label as the "new desirable." Sure, people almost always aspire to that which they are not (part of the definition of "aspire"), but <strong>the most important point here</strong> is that with Photoshopping, <strong>people are aspiring to a physical beauty that does not in fact exist</strong>. Little girls and young men (and everyone else) see representations of the female form that we internalize as desirable, when in fact these female forms are often anatomically impossible or unattainable (and warped) "ideals" created by the fashion/advertising industry.</p>

<p>We are not simply talking about representing "attractiveness." We are talking about manufacturing lies about the body and representing them as truths. So the intentions behind this algorithm, I think, are simply to label "this picture is 80% fabricated" or something, much like additives and preservatives in food must be identified on the label. Whether or not this 1-5 algorithm is the right way to do educate folks about this is another story.</p>

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Skip,

 

When human beings select their mates, is that Natural Selection?

 

I think it is counter definitional. Natural Selection implies randomness, or the whims of Nature to select. But that is not

how humans reproduce now, and have not then. Humans, especially human females, are VERY selective with whom

they reproduce with.

 

A woman may have 300 pairs of shoes, she may have one mate at any given time; or at most a few mates throughout

her lifetime. That is a highly selective trait, and counter to randomness.

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<blockquote>

<p><strong>people are aspiring to a physical beauty that does not in fact exist</strong>.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>It doesn't have to.</p>

<p>If you are an architect, and you design skyscrapers, can you not aspire to design a skyscraper taller than any already built? You know that the trait exists(for taller skyscrapers), yet you have never seen one taller than the tallest; you know that when one is built taller, that it is taller.</p>

<p>The trait exists, regardless of whether an example of that trait exists.</p>

<p>For example, take a beautiful woman, say Claudia Black. Symmetrical face, very large eye size to cranium ratio, high cheekbones, great teeth, high forehead, chin to face ratio is ideal, etc. But she has a larger than ideal nose to face ratio. You know, or can 'feel', that at some point genetics will get it right, and put a more ideal nose on her face. Her daughters may grow up with a less larger nose to face ratio, retaining most of her other attractive qualities.</p>

<p>You know that that ideal trait is possible to exist, though it does not now.</p>

<p>And Claudia knows that, if she is like other women. You can probably predict that she has thought about rhinoplasty several times in her life.<br /> <br /> <br /> Women can detect physical attractiveness in other women, much better than men can detect physical attractiveness in other males(unless they are homosexual). That is not a learned behavior(if you have girls, you discover that). And women compare their own physical attractiveness to other women all the time, it is one of the ways that they compete socially with other women. It is one of the ways that they form a social order with other women.<br /> <br /> Just as men compete financially, intellectually, and physically(with sports or warfare).</p>

<p> </p>

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<blockquote>

<p>Little girls and young men (and everyone else) see representations of the female form that we internalize as desirable, when in fact these female forms are often anatomically impossible or unattainable (and warped) "ideals" <strong>created by the fashion/advertising industry.</strong></p>

</blockquote>

<p>I too, once thought like this. When I was younger, and based my opinions mostly upon what I learned though books or smart people stating it. But my experience has been counter to that.</p>

<p>It is much more likely that the traits exist, and are being exploited by the fashion and advertising industry. They hire people who have a heightened awareness to these qualities, and then exploit what already exists. It certainly is no accident that we all find the women on the covers of glamour magazines attractive. The selection traits are there. The magazines have hired people who have a better sense of detecting them(a more active trait, if you will), and photographing them, and putting them on the cover of their magazines.</p>

<p>What is my proof? Me. I am white. I have grown up mostly around white people. I then should only find white women attractive, if the nurture theory holds. But I don't. I find women of all pedigrees attractive. And interestingly, generally I find women of other races attractive that men of those races find attractive as well. I could not have learned that. Now, you may not be like me, and find only women who are very much like your own pedigree attractive, because that has been what you were taught; but I doubt it.</p>

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<blockquote>

<p>Attractiveness is a reproductive trait and it is subjective.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Kelly,</p>

<p>I would bet you a years subscription to P.Net that I could post the pictures of 100 attractive women(it would be a violation of P.Net's TOA, of course), those who I find attractive physically, and that you would agree that most of them are attractive to you. Even if you have never seen them before, or had been exposed to anyone who looked like them.</p>

<p>Of course there are certain subjectivities involved. Example would be, attractive women who look like or remind me of my sisters or mother, or daughters. I can detect that they are attractive, I would not have sex with them given the opportunity. But I think that is an innate quality too(incest taboo is most likely a genetic trait). But I still know that they are attractive. Uma Thurman reminds me of my baby sister(who's in her 40s now). That would be a no-go softey affair, I am sure; but I know she is still hot.</p>

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Richard,

 

I would not take that bet. Having said that, not a very good test anyway. You and I are hardly capable of making a

concrete determination to set the global standards for what is considered attractive. That would not answer the question

anyway. I still argue there is a moral conundrum when advertisers manufacture consent in the general population to

sexualize children and woman. Using post production techniques too achieve hyper-real imagery that sanitizes and

narrows the acceptable range of "what is beautiful" for the sole purpose of subverting self-esteem in the viewer.

 

There is probably a list of observable cultural artifacts that are unique to the age of mass media public relations that range

from eating disorders to unmanageable personal credit card debt. Hardly scratching the surface I'm sure.

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<blockquote>

<p><strong>people are aspiring to a physical beauty that does not in fact exist</strong>.<br>

It doesn't have to.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Aspiring to build the tallest skyscraper is probably not a dangerous thing (if one is a pretty good architect). Aspiring to be as thin as an attractive model on the cover of magazine X, a model who herself weighs perhaps 20% more than her Photoshop-enhanced image, is all too often a dangerous, and sometimes deadly, thing. This is not because aspiring beyond oneself is bad, but when one is bombarded in all media by images that we are told to aspire to, and these images do not in fact represent physically possible traits or traits that actually exist even in the models embodying them, this is unhealthy. The idea that specially trained professionals are uncovering Platonic ideals of beauty and photographing them for the edification of the rest of us is certainly amusing, but naïve. How, and why, do different cultures' perceptions of beauty change over time? They do all the time. The concern is that they're now changing differently than they did in the past...</p>

<p>I'm thinking about stuff like this— <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MFPGa0pKyTg">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MFPGa0pKyTg</a></p>

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"the sole purpose of subverting self-esteem in the viewer."

 

That is not the purpose. The purpose is to sell stuff.

 

All you need to do is convince women that dominant/successful women have something(or want something) and they

too will want it. It is an exploitation of female competition, that's all.

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<p>Well, she didn't say "sole," but you're right about exploiting individuals' sense of competition to help sell stuff. And how best to exploit that sense of competition or desire (or aspiration)? By subverting individuals' self-esteem. (I wouldn't need to become something different if I wasn't content with who I am now.) It's done with cars, gum, lawn-care products. Usually it's more or less inane; it's advertising and it's required if we're to live in a society that's constantly producing products of questionable necessity. But our society chooses to regulate some of this advertising (cigarettes, alcohol, medicine, food packaging, etc.). So the question here concerns whether or not it would be appropriate to also regulate Photoshopped images in the interest of public health. The secondary question (or maybe it's the primary question in this thread, and the secondary question is the above foundational one) is whether or not this 1-5 scale algorithmic labeling system is the right way to go about regulating Photoshopped images, or at least drawing attention to them.</p>
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<p>Well I don't think these statements and sentiments are right at all. I find it preposterous that fashion photo's lead to a subverted self-esteem. What is more than likely is that these people, or children, or whoever, already have some sort of self-esteem issue to begin with. Someone already prone to self-depreciation through the way they were raised either by parents or society (more than likely a result of both). <br /><br />Women and men have the incredible ability of changing there appearance. Dieting so they aren't overweight, fixing there hair, arranging more attractive outfits, changing their behavior. There are few outliers which cannot make themselves more attractive. <br>

"Ideal" is and will always be about excess. The fact that fashion photography serves to promote transactions does not make it exploitative. The "ideal" woman would be a culmination of desirable traits of society and as such they shall supersede the "attractiveness" of what amounts to be the "average" woman. It doesn't matter if society were to say obese women are the most attractive. If that were the case (and hell, it could have been), then we would see retouches that added 25lbs and skinny people would be complaining that it isn't fair.<br /><br />It sounds harsh, but it truly isn't. It is just that certain people have united to embrace something other than societies currently accepted value of attractiveness. This issue can also be seen as certain peoples unwillingness to accept and adapt to currently held values. Either way, it will always be a case of less or more, left or right, black or white. Attractiveness doesn't lie "normal" or "average," that's why it's called normal and average.<br /><br />Thank you. I know it was long, but if you go through all of it, thanks. Don't defy human nature, it's more destructive than adaptation.</p>

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<blockquote>

<p>It's done with cars, gum, lawn-care products.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>It's done with everything. Including photography.</p>

<blockquote>

<p>Usually it's more or less inane; it's advertising and it's required if we're to live in a society that's constantly producing products of questionable necessity.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>To a male it may seem inane. For a woman, it is essential. Women base their woman to woman competition on such things. And their competition is no less important than your male to male competition. Beyond a pointy stick, Skip, everything is of questionable necessity.</p>

<p>Let me give you an example.<br /> Ugg and Pugg are sitting in the cave, next to the fire. Ugg is perfectly happy eating his mastadon steak on a stick. A stick with one point is just fine for Ugg. But Pugg was over at Mugg and Tugg's cave when Ugg and Mugg were out hunting. And Tugg showed Pugg her stick with two points.<br>

<br /> So when Ugg and Pugg are eating their steaks on the one pointed stick, Pugg stops eating, and shes getting a little pissed. "How come we don't have a stick with two points, like Tugg has?", she says to Ugg. Ugg, grunt's, "Dunno, no need". Pugg disagrees. Pugg says, "No two pointy stick, no zug zug."<br /> Ugg gasps, "no zug zug?". Pugg replies, "yup, no zug zug." Ugg frowns.</p>

<p>So, the next day, Ugg and Mugg are out hunting mastodons, its really not a great hunting day so.... Ugg gets these caveman cartoon thought bubbles above his head.... And Ugg gets a big rock and bashes Mugg's head in with a big pointy rock. Ugg then goes over to Mugg's cave and takes Mugg's two pointed stick. And takes it back to his cave for Pugg to admire. She gushes, cavewoman style. Pugg is happy. And then Ugg and Pugg zug zug. Ugg is happy.</p>

<p>Next day, Pugg is thinking about Tugg. "She is going to starve, who will take care of her?". She says to Ugg, "Go over and get Tugg, bring her back here, we will feed her, and she will clean up our cave for us, and fetch us firewood and water." Ugg complies, and does this for Pugg.<br /> <br /> End of Ugg and Pugg Part 1.</p>

<p> </p>

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<blockquote>

<p>The "ideal" woman would be a culmination of desirable traits of society</p>

</blockquote>

<p><br />Attractiveness and arousal are autonomic events for me. I don't know about you. If you have the ability to alter your body's chemistry and physiology at a conscious level, I think a lot of physiologists would like to meet you.<br /> <br /> No society trained me to have an erection admiring one woman, and not with another. Has society trained you when to get a hard on or not?</p>

<p>This is governed by the parasympathetic autonomic nervous system. You can no more control what beautiful women arouse you, than you control a bolus of food after you swallow it. There is no thinking involved to move the piece of meat down your esophagus, churn it up in your stomach, and move it out past the pylorus, to the smaller intestine, past the cecum, and up and around the ascending, transverse, and descending and sigmoid colon.</p>

<p>You do have some control over your rectum and anus, a little. And that is a good thing. Society did not teach you how to move that food through the whole process, no more than it taught you what women are attractive and which are not. You can't control it if you wanted to.</p>

<p>Those desirable traits are the culmination of 5000 generations of selective reproductive patterns of our ancestors.(social and societal behaviors were traits selected, of course). They may seem arbitrary because you don't understand them, or the reasons. But they are all really simple when you think about them.</p>

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Richard,

 

Really? No control? I'm not buying that. All reactions to stimulus are not "controlled" by the nervous system. The

argument that humans are just animals responding to the environment is compelling on some level but it fails to account

for so much more.

 

You seem to have an interest in science I think to better understand social manipulation through public relations you

might find some interesting reading. There are some researchers that have spent a lifetime studying and writing about the

manipulation of the public mind through propaganda and the uses of media to reach such an end.

 

And also, you may find simplicity in defining human behavior based on selective reproductive patterns but you won't solve

any problems. By distilling complex systems to simple reactionary behavior misses to much in between.

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Kelly,

 

Your reactions certainly are controlled. Or should be. We put people who can't control their reactions in prisons and

mental hospitals.

 

"And also, you may find simplicity in defining human behavior based on selective reproductive patterns but you won't

solve any problems."

 

Of course not. I don't think its simplistic, its very complex. I think understanding what the code is allows one to predict

how another will 'feel' in the situation. And to understand personal motivations is always a good thing.

 

"By distilling complex systems to simple reactionary behavior misses to much in between"

 

By saying complex systems, you at least then agree that there is a system, and that repeatable patterns exist, correct?

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" All reactions to stimulus are not "controlled" by the nervous system"

 

Arousal is controlled by the autonomic nervous system. I can't see how you can deny that. Unless you are very special,

you can not get an erection like you can move your arm. The first time you saw a beautiful woman naked, you had an

uncontrolled erection.

 

Which was probably embarrasing, and you had to learn how to control the stimuli that caused that awkward moment. You

learned to put thoughts of baseball or dead cats in your head to make it stop. You can not make it go down just by

thinking it down, like you would think of moving your arm or leg down. It is autonomic. It is completely unlearned.

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Digressed? How?

 

How can you have a conversation about self image and attractiveness without discussing attractiveness and self image? Or about female competition which is partially based on female attractiveness?

 

 

 

 

Anyway, the proposed software doesn't even exist. And for it to exist it would need a before and after photo to make an

analysis. That's never going to happen. It is silly, the NYT article is silly.

 

It obvious that it is interesting to people, I have seen the link posted to at least two other websites I visit. Women who are more attractive than other women will almost always choose more attractive mates; more athletic, better looking, more smarter, or more productive. Even if they don't actually choose them, they had the actual choice; something most average women do not have. Women complaining about that is like me complaining that I don't look like Brad Pitt, or that I am not an NFL quarterback.

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Digressed because I am responding to the use of doctored images in media culture and you are talking about

uncontrolled erections. As I wrote before, there are many respected media critics and researchers that have accumulated

a lifetimes work exposing the uses of such propaganda to manipulate the public mind. Take a look at Noam Chomsky's

"manufacturing consent" or the work of Edward Bernaise.

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<p>Yeah, seriously, Richard, of course it's a digression. The problem is that early on, you stated that you were suspicious of "book learnin'" and would only base your thinking on personal experience and, as soon became apparent, emotion:</p>

<blockquote>

<p >I too, once thought like this. When I was younger, and based my opinions mostly upon what I learned though books or smart people stating it. But my experience has been counter to that.</p>

</blockquote>

<p >So clearly any discussion of the philosophical underpinnings of this issue is moot, because you'll discount any evidence, support, or agumentation offered by <em>anybody</em> if it's counter to your "experience" and emotional feelings on the issue. Decades of research about how children must "learn" gender roles and about the ways mass media manipulates perceptions? Irrelevant to you; instead, young girls ("children") who see thin models or actors on magazines or TV shows and develop body issues must have already had some sort of self-esteem issue:</p>

<blockquote>

<p >I find it preposterous that fashion photo's lead to a subverted self-esteem. What is more than likely is that these people, or children, or whoever, already have some sort of self-esteem issue to begin with. Someone already prone to self-depreciation through the way they were raised either by parents or society (more than likely a result of both). </p>

</blockquote>

<p >Of course they have some sort of self-esteem issue, but how do you think it developed? You ended that statement by suggesting that it might be the result of how they were raised by parents or society — and yet you also find it preposterous that fashion photos lead to subverted self-esteems! Isn't it possible that fashion photos might be part of that "society" that creates "some sort of self-esteem issue?"</p>

<p > </p>

<p >Why this is still relevant on Photo.net is because we, as photographers, must not pretend to duck our responsibilities as creators and curators of images. And remember, this thread isn't at all simply about photographs of beautiful people; it's about an industry that systematically alters photographs to surround us with ideals of beauty that do not in fact exist. The images that we are surrounded with, as standards of beauty to aspire to, are not records of actual people. In any case, since you've stated that you're not interested in the reasoned arguments of smart people, there's really not much to discuss, is there?</p>

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