"Sex, Lies and Photoshop" Opinion piece in the New York Times

[ellis_vener_photography]

<p>a video editorial by Jess Epstein: http://video.nytimes.com/video/2009/03/09/opinion/1194838469575/sex-lies-and-photoshop.html</p>

<p>Should magazines and advertisers be forced to disclose to that a photo has been retouched? France is considering such a law.</p>

<p>photo retoucher: "Every picture ( in a magazine ad) has gone through 20-30 rounds of retouching between the retoucher the client and the agency...they are perfected to death...all that is there to alter your mind of what your conception of what physical beauty is..."</p>

<p>Epstein: "...If the models themselves can't even measure up to their own images, what does this mean?" Why do advertisers and publishers want to foster a negative self body image in their readers and viewers?"</p>

<p>Vener, sotto voce: ( It's so they can make money by sellign what they are selling, stupid).</p>

<p>Epstein: "Even the retouchers think this is a problem."</p>

[bruce_watson1]

<p>I like the suggestion that the retoucher(s) should get a credit just like the photographer does. Other than that, it's amazing to me that the NYTs is so far behind the debate. I used to think that NY led this kind of thing. Clearly that's no longer the case. I'm thinking it's because the corporate owners don't want this discussed, and won't allow it to be discussed in their rags until it becomes a movement outside their control. Even then, they are careful to keep this limited to a fall guy -- Photoshop in this case. Will they talk about the selective reporting and careful shaping of the news -- about how it's editied to blandness, about how it's held back until it's no longer relevant to anyone but historians? No, lets just blame the world's ills on Photoshop. This week.</p>

[Matt Laur]

<p>It's nonsense, of course. It's no different than wetting down a driveway before shooting an ad for a car, or using a wide angle lens to make a kitchen look more idyllic. There's some rather fabulous artwork from classical Egyptian, Greek, and Roman times showing the use of wigs, makeup, and structured clothing as it was used to alter the way that someone appeared to the public. To say nothing of idealizing them through art. <br /><br />Is France going to require in-magazine credits for the chemists that created the hair dye used to keep someone blonde? Or cite the fitness coach and huge financial and time commitment that got an "actually" fit-looking model to look that way? Certainly average people aren't that fit, any more than the average person has great looking skin. It's an <em>ad</em> for cryin' out loud. What's needed here isn't government mandated disclaimers, it's the teaching of critical thinking skills at the elementary school level. You don't need to put a warning next to a photograph once you have young people who actually understand that fantasy images in ads are just as unreal as entertaining film vampires or boy wizards in novels.</p>

[jay_hopkins]

<p>This is not something new, manipulating to make one's product look better in advertising. I can remember a TV commercial that was selling paper towels and they equated weight of the roll to quality. The competitor's product was on the scale and when the subject was placed on the other side of the scale it was heavier (better). When they removed the product, the scale didn't budge with the competitor's product lighter than the empty scale. If people don't realize by now that the intent of commercials/ads are dubious at best, they deserve what they get.<br />Buyer beware!<br />Jay</p>

[starvy]

<p>since so many of us are so used to touching up that the debate seems beyond us. touching up certainly opens up a range of possibilities that would not have been open with such ease in the past, however, something has to be said about how touched up some model pictures tend to be.</p>

[johnw436]

<p>HD TV is teaching the world what portrait photographers have always known: human beings do not look good up close and it only gets worse as the image gets sharper.</p>

<p>Hollywood must be very worried right now. It takes a lot of work to make a starlet look that gorgeous even on a low resolution movie screen or standard TV. HD is destroying the facade. Your local news set is probably adorned in duct tape because it looks like metal trim on TV. Not anymore...</p>

<p> </p>

[patricklavoie]

<p>here another thread about it..maybe the modarator could fusion the 2?</p>

<p>http://www.photo.net/portraits-and-fashion-photography-forum/00ShwH</p>

<p>*for years people in the biz where aware about the bad make up quality and bad tv make up artist..now they are seriously in deep s*** because peopel can see how bad they are! A make up artist on a photo set is way more dedicated and way more precise in part because of the nature of the job itslef; having a pretty sharp lense in a face of a model with strong light and reflector help being better : )</p>

 

[dave_redmann]

<p>This strikes me as a tempest in a teapot relative to the truly serious issue of digital darkroom faking of real editorial photography. There have been a few well-publicized instances of fraud or near-fraud with edited pictures in the mainstream media, and probably more than a few that went largely undetected.</p>

<p>You'd have to be a bit slow (I know, plenty out there!) to think that Jennifer Aniston, Nicole Kidman, Natalie Portman, Sienna Miller, and Anne Hathaway look as good in real life as they do in carefully-made-up, carefully-shot, carefully-retouched pictures for glossy fluff magazines. After all, the paparazzi give the world a more real-life, everyday image of these people. And airbrushing and strategic lighting have been around for a long time, and should not be much of a surprise to anyone who pays a little attention.</p>

<p>As for measuring up to images, well, am I unusual in thinking that by far the biggest reason people in the U.S. (and probably the western world) don't look the way they want to is actually the major public health problem of obesity? I mean, study after study shows that the healthiest weight is the one that gives a BMI* of around 20 or a little higher, but a third of the U.S. adult population is above 30 (obese) and another third is between 25 and 30 (overweight). Why are lots of people dissatisfied with their looks? In my view, it's not because they don't look like some Photoshopped shot of a model, stretching out the legs and smoothing out the face; instead, it's mostly because people go to McDonald's and say, "Supersize me!" way too often.</p>

<p>*BMI is weight in kilograms divided by the square of height in meters. If you want to use pounds and feet, just multiply by 4.88 at the end. So for a person 5 ft 4 in (1.63m), the healthiest weight is usually about 117 lb (53 kg), and for a person 5 ft 9 in (1.75m), the healthiest weight is usually about 135 lb (61 kg). I say usually because there are a <em>very few</em> people with bone structures or muscles such that the somewhat simplistic BMI paints a notably inaccurate picture--but most of them play in the NFL.</p>

 

[Tim_Lookingbill]

<p>Ellis,</p>

<p>Nice article, uh...video?</p>

<p>Didn't know New York Times made video's. Thanks, Ellis, for posting this.</p>

<p>I guess newspapers are hell bent on competing and this is evidence of it. I always hated the sneezing that came with reading newsprint. I may be reading the New York Times but on the net. Smart, classy organization.</p>

[kyleweems]

<p>"photo retoucher: "Every picture ( in a magazine ad) has gone through 20-30 rounds of retouching between the retoucher the client and the agency...they are perfected to death..."</p>

<p>This is somewhat unrelated, sorry.. but if this were at all true, the greatest site on the internet wouldn't even exist.. http://www.photoshopdisasters.com/</p>

<p>As far as I'm concerned, who cares.. I'd be shocked if anybody out there didn't realize there was some serious image editing going on in magazines. Is it silly? Absolutely, but it makes products look good, and that sells.. that's not going to change any time soon. Giving retouchers some credit would be cool, but I know I personally don't care so long as I'm getting paid well for the work</p>

[patricklavoie]

<p><em>I personally don't care so long as I'm getting paid well for the work</em><br>

exactly.</p>

<p>People who have to know me, know me..a credit wont change that, it would be nice..but i can live without one, im surviving without one for the past 9years. Good web site, good presence, email to client to make them notice you or not forget you, for now it work well.</p>

[Robin Smith]

<p>Well, I don't think it's stupid. There is nothing wrong with honesty is there? After all many ads have lots of small print (think pharma ads) - this can just be more. Also it is not so much the obvious ads, it is the "factual" info which surely requires accuracy and honesty. It seems to me that although photo manipulation methods are ancient it does not mean they are desirable. The fact that it has always happened does not make it right etc etc.</p>

[mark_schafer1]

<p>It's a great discussion...Today it's hard to show work to photo buyers that are not perfected. But to a degree that's been done since the birth of fashion photography. One example is Horst's "Mainbocher corset" which Sotheby's auctioned the original print with retouch marks. The waist is heavily erased, aka taken in and the image had the original scratch marks on the print. All prints we see today are actual printed from a reprograph of this. Here's the link:<br>

http://www.staleywise.com/collection/horst/corset.html<br>

Another great article was in last years New Yorker magazine about Pascal, probably one of the most important artists in that field, which caused some ripples:<br>

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/05/12/080512fa_fact_collins<br>

And yes, people like him should get credit on the image, especially when the photographer can't deliver one single image that actually works and in becomes a frankenphotoshopjob. But then again everybody involved contributes to the perfect picture, subject, Hair, Make up, lighting, styling, set, location, stress level etc. and the retoucher is just the last bit of the equation, and at some point the credit line becomes longer than the actual content....</p>

<p> </p>

[alan_goldhammer]

<p>This is such nonsense. Read about all the work that Ansell Adams had to do to print Moonrise over Hernandez so that he achieved the impact he wanted. I can count the number of my negatives and digital images that did NOT require any type of manipulation on one hand. Virtually any thing requires some type of work.</p>

[twmeyer]

<p>So there's no difference between a driveway, a desert grave yard and a human being. I know my drive way wishes it was wet all the time, and the graveyard in my town is secretly cutting itself.</p>

<p>I think I'll get some implants to make my chest look more manly and buy my wife a session of liposuction for her birthday... t</p>

[patricklavoie]

<p>dam, Tom, you are in fire today : )</p>

<p>Save on implant Tom, send me your picture i will fix it ; )</p>

[williamting]

<p>Dove had a PR campaign a couple years back demonstrating how much editting goes into a <a href="

billboard</a>.</p>

<p>For a lot of us as amateurs or pros, touching up may seem second hand nature. However if you were to ask the general public whether or not they conciously realized that all billboards / advertisement / magazines were editted you'd get a conflicting response.</p>

<p>I also work/study in the computer software industry and there's a similar correlation. What seems intuitive to a lot of programmers or engineers is not intuitive to general public. They can only see it "their way", and that's why you have so many programs with horrible designs and user interfaces. On the other hand, Apple focuses on the user interface more than anything else (they rarely produce anything technically innovating) and have obviously captured quite a bit of market share with their approach.</p>

<p>Just keep in mind that while you conciously realize every TV and magazine picture seen is heavily editted, most people (and especially impressionable young adults) do not make that conscious distinction and it may unknowingly affect their personal views of beauty.</p>

<p>There's a strong disconnect between what we think is normal beauty and what it actually is. It's like when guys will rate Jennifer Anniston a 6/10 on the internet, when in reality most of us are dating or married to a 5/10 that look nothing like her (even the untouched, live version).</p>

[patricklavoie]

<p>H, i agree with you..im with a 10/10 girl myself live version unretouched : )</p>

<p>But i dont really think it will help the normal user to understand the shot have been retouched by adding a <strong>*caution, this image is purely fiction; this model doestn look as good in real life vs here on this page so you might want a eat something tonight because the retoucher remove 10pound electronicaly *<br /> </strong></p>

 

[williamting]

<p>A surgeon general type warning would never work in the industry and is going for too much of a shock value.</p>

<p>A more realistic approach would be to add an extra line to the credits in one of the corners:<br>

Clothes: A<br>

Make-up: B<br>

Photographer: C<br>

Retouched: D</p>

<p>The photoshopper gets recognition and there's the subtle implication that the photograph may has been modified.</p>

[twmeyer]

<p>On fire? I thought that was pretty understated compared to Matt's rants on the Portrait/Fashion thread concerning this topic.</p>

<p>Here's something from Kate Winslet back in 2003. Oddly enough, she's dealing with more of the same because of her plasticized rendering on the current American Vogue.<br>

When you feel like you have to tart up someone as gorgeous as Kate Winslet, what is even a beautiful girl supposed to think she has to do to be considered attractive? I know the answer, but it's not a question that impacts my life every day, except by messing with the head (in a bad way) of every woman I know:</p>

<p>10 JANUARY 2003<br /> A newly statuesque Kate Winslet towers on a pair of surprisingly slimline pins on the cover of next month's <em>GQ</em> magazine. The result of a pre-festive season crash diet? No, more like a little digital manipulation on the part of the magazine's art department. <br /> <br /> The <em>Titanic</em> star, who has always made it clear that she doesn't believe a woman has to be slim to be attractive, has come under fire in some quarters for being involved in the project. According to her agent, however, although the actress had approved the original photos she was not consulted about the digital changes. <br /> <br /> In fact the star confirmed her attitude in the interview accompanying the photos. "What is sexy?" she says. "All I know from the men I've ever spoken to is that they like girls to have an arse on them. So why is it that women think in order to be adored they have to be thin?" <br /> <br /> Meanwhile, the magazine's editor, Dylan Jones, while admitting that the photos had been doctored, claims that Kate has actually lost a great deal of weight recently. "These pictures are not a million miles away from what she really looks like," he says. "Kate is currently thinner than I have ever seen her, petite and sexy." <br /> <br /> Ms Winslet herself, however, doesn't seem to share his opinion. "The retouching is excessive. I do not look like that and more importantly I don't desire to look like that," she said. "I actually have a Polaroid that the photographer gave me on the day of the shoot… I can tell you they've reduced the size of my legs by about a third. For my money it looks pretty good the way it was taken."</p>

<p>... t</p>

[patricklavoie]

<p>Agree whit that; a lot of magazine do cheap and excessive retouching..dam i had a hard time recognizing 'aria Beluuci on a cover of a magazine! She is so georgous in real life, the magzine cover look like she as been retouched by a body car retoucher...</p>

<p>Its always a matter of judgment when whe are talking about public figure, actor, and well know people retouching wise i mean..you cant remove madonna *mouche* from the side of her mouth because YOU as a retoucher dont like that!? it will be insane (but seen!) When i work with profesional model..all is possible to acquire the look you need for this particular campaing..that the sad truth about it; and the model know it, its part of the job. longer leg, bigger boob, fuller lips, almond shape eyes, skin silky smooth..is all part of my job to bring them there.</p>

<p>I dont think a credit on a magazine page will suddendly bring this to the people attention..people dont like to be *informed*, they like the dream part of it, they like to think they could look as good..retoucher credit or not, its been like that forever, and im sure it will be like that for the future..i just hope that people would be able to make the difference about what they see and what they should be.</p>

[twmeyer]

<p>"<em>people dont like to be *informed*, they like the dream part of it</em> ,"</p>

<p>This is just one type of person... but they also like the pics of J-lo in baseball cap and sloppy jeans at Starbucks and Decaprio lookin slovenly on the beach. The National Enquirer does a pretty good business selling pre-photoshop images of the "Beautiful" people.</p>

<p>I think if we showed these famous and beautiful people as they actually are, they would be more interesting to a wider range of people. It's narrow, small minded marketing that thinks we won't go see Kate Winslet's movies because she isn't skinny, or that we wouldn't buy Donna Karan dresses if we saw Queen Latifa wearing one.</p>

<p><a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.nytimes.com/packages/html/magazine/20090205-great-performers/?hp" target="_blank">http://www.nytimes.com/packages/html/magazine/20090205-great-performers/?hp</a></p>

<p>My personal creed is to remove temporary blemishes like zits and perhaps the eye darkness from lack of sleep and leave the characteristics of a persons face naturally aged face as they are.</p>

<p>But honestly, as you say, money talks. If someone wants to look 10 years younger and is willing to pay for that facelift, I'm happy to oblige. These aren't editorial or advertising images, they are portraits made of the client for the client... t</p>

 

[patricklavoie]

<p>Oh i agree with you on that! I will never ever put more than 1% of my retouching skill on a *normal* person, and even if the client ask for it i will try to understand the point first and see where whe can go to a arrangement first of where to stop.</p>

<p>For the record, even if im a precision - retouching freak, i never retouch anything on my family / friend portrait, other then the usual darkroom. And the good thing is that when i leave my studio, i put myself in the normal people mode; i dont look at women or man to find the flaws..its a normal thing of life, but before 5pm..man im a serious freak about everyhting and every details! ; ) LOL</p>

[keith_b1]

<p>BTW, it turns out that HDTV demands less-thick makeup, less soft lighting, and less softening filtration than SDTV, since it doesn't need the heavy, artificial 'contours out of green' sharpening that SDTV has to have to make it look OK. </p>

[charlesheckel]

<p>There's a name for it: reification. An image becomes an icon, a symbolic standin or trigger for feelings that are to be aroused within the viewer. Biologists who study these feelings in animals are able to isolate the triggering stimuli and sometimes to produce a superstimulus--a model that the target animals will prefer to the real thing.</p>