Ridiculous photoshopping makes me angry

I saw this come across on fstoppers and I literally did a double take.



W.... T.... F!?

Now I watched the video that goes along with it and determined that, yes, she is very tall and lanky, but not that effing lanky! Did someone not want to tell the person in power that this looks ridiculous? If I had an interest in this company's products, it would make me even more mad.

You can clearly see that everything about her has been made thinner, possibly longer, and something really weird is going on with her wrist. Skin has also been smoothed and color corrected. (anyone else want to find edits?)



[video=vimeo;33547061]http://vimeo.com/33547061[/video]

My wife knows a Girl Scout Leader who took the time to show the girls how today's extensive "photoshopping" of women in product advertising might make the girls think that absolute perfection is attainable. She used examples almost as ridiculous as those in the above post to illustrate her point and thus teach the girls that they are just fine as they are and that they needn't chase an impossible vision of beauty.

My wife and I see advertisements with impossibly race-neutral "photoshopped" people who perfectly blend every nationality on the globe into one face and even gender-neutral ads that feature a virtual face that could be a man or a woman. Yes, it's all quite ridiculous.

Maybe ridiculous, but i would like to know how they achieved those results

Yeah no doubt the photos are awesome but I would be more impressed without all the post processing.

sent from my phone

When you hear the guy from RevIt say that it's important for the photos to express their view of reality then all bets are off.

As for the edits, the girl is very leggy. The only other thing I could find outside of typical smoothing and evening of skin tones is when you look at her legs between 1:20 and about 1:28 you can see that they slimmed (quite unnecessarily) her upper thighs, if only to give her a more pronounced bottom. I guess Maggie needs to do some more squats.

Commercial advertising is all about selling ideals and fantasy, to the extent that even what would be considered perfection my most isn't perfect enough. And we wonder why kids are obsessed with looks and skinny girls think they're fat. Not even those blessed with great genetics can live up to their own photos. 54 Photoshopped Celebrity Before and After Photos

They definitely did her waist too...



There's something going on with her left leg as well.

The one thing that really bugs me is when a photographer goes way overboard on smoothing skin tones, especially the face. It makes the model look like a mannequin. The plastic look is all the rage with some photographers but for me it just looks stupid. Some models have a bit of a rough complexion and evening that out a little is fine. But to turn their skin to plastic is just plain ridiculous. Below is an example of what I am talking about. On the left is a basically un-retouched photo of Amber, a model I have shot quite a bit. She has a very nice complexion and some subtle makeup really hid any flaws. On the right is a purposely over-smoothed rendition of this image. It may look cartoonish but I have seen some which are even worse. It looks stupid and very fake and in my opinion at least, not flattering at all. People are supposed to have some texture to their skin!

STM said:

The one thing that really bugs me is when a photographer goes way overboard on smoothing skin tones, especially the face. It makes the model look like a mannequin. The plastic look is all the rage with some photographers but for me it just looks stupid.

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Dear GAWD... What words could I possibly type that would sufficiently communicate how strongly I agree with these statements? There simply are no such words.

.....

This is what I was talking about in another thread, it was edited to the point of fantasy, its not real and not something I am interested in. I prefer real images and real memories.

Good post Scott and very true, leave the Barbies to the toy store and show me real ones that are not over processed.

My personal taste and I dont fault people for it because they have a vision and mad editing skills, its just not something that I care to do.

The other thing I've noticed about a photographer "overshopping" is that all of their work looks the same, regardless of location, subject and lighting. Everything looks homogenized and very predictable, and is of lesser interest to me than if they'd just left it alone. Reality is powerful -- shoot the image with care and let it stand.

Ha, kind of like plastic surgery, they all start to look the same...

STM said:

The one thing that really bugs me is when a photographer goes way overboard on smoothing skin tones, especially the face. It makes the model look like a mannequin. The plastic look is all the rage with some photographers but for me it just looks stupid.

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+1

In this case it's exactly what they wanted but with her legs/butt as the focal point. I don't think they could've made her skin look more plastic if they tried, and that's sad.

WhiteLight said:

Maybe ridiculous, but i would like to know how they achieved those results

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The Warp Tool is your friend here...