Photo retouching makes it possible to beef up a guy's physique or give a woman a wasp waist. The resulting images of models in magazines present impossible ideals for people. (Image above from Glamour magazine)
The teen glamour magazine called Seventeen has made a pledge to its readers about how it will and won't digitally manipulate photos of young models.
The magazine responded to an online petition by 14-year-old Julia Bluhm, who observed that many girls in her ballet class complained that they were fat.
Seventeen's pledge to its readers says that it will never change a girl's body or face shape, and will change only incidental details, like "flyaway hair," a confusing background, or an out-of-place bra strap. They set up a special blog that takes readers behind the scenes at photo shoots and shows the images before and after retouching.
The magazine "Glamour" has also responded to criticism, polling its readers about what how much retouching is good, and they produced a video where women answer the question "What makes you feel good about your body?"
Seventeen's photo shoot blog
Seventeen's Pledge
New York Times article
I'm glad Seventeen is taking the petition seriously. It's one thing to clean up a photo a little and another to completely change the model into something they aren't.
ReplyDeleteLeaving aside how such images might affect young girls still forming their view of the world and themselves the resulting images are often flat and lacking personality or narrative. I know it's possible to manipulate photos and preserve or enhance those things, I've seen some amazing photo manipulations, but these magazines aren't going in that direction but only look to have the most "perfect" photos even if they are lifeless and distort already beautiful models into proportions that are impossible for anyone to have without missing ribs and internal organs.
Thanks for posting this up, James! It's good to hear this happening.
ReplyDeletePersonally, i had worked in a photography studio. There were pictures i had to manipulate that goes against my beliefs. Most of the models were already pretty thin and to my horror, they would still want me to pinch a little here and there. Most womens' armpits/boobs/waists or mens' chests/arms/jawline and many other things are mostly retouched.
Had to leave after a few months working there, really didn't feel comfortable with distorting people's (esp. teens') idea of a good body.
I think that Seventeen's pledge to not retouch will back fire. I feel it puts ADDED pressure on young girls and models. When photoshop is used, girls and models can reasonably say "Oh that's been photoshopped for the magazine photo, she doesn't REALLY look like that so I am okay not looking just like that". Whereas now, the models in Seventeen magazine still have a huge team behind each photo spending hours on hair, make-up, perfect lighting, expensive wardrobes, etc. that the average girl/model can never have in real life. So telling girls they can look that way NATURALLY with NO photoshop is way not true.
ReplyDeleteAlso, how do we know they are being honest about the no photoshop thing? That could cause even more pressure if they are using photoshop and lying about it.
Just my two cents!
Amelia
www.aclassicallife.wordpress.com
In background, disappear kiosc of Miami Beach lifeguard, we are in Pacific, in Bora-Bora!
ReplyDeleteHonestly, I modeled and did pageants from 16 to 22. I didn't need touching up. It's the best time in a girl's life looks and body wise. It's the middle-aged actresses on magazine covers with no crinkles or undereye circles or crepy skin that do the worst for women's self images. Seventeen has a good idea, but they also aren't showing all kinds of teen girl's figures either.
ReplyDelete@Autumn Forest: I agree, I think a wider variety of body types and ethnicity is needed too. Glamour magazines show only a tiny sliver of how women look, tall, very thin, busty, and mostly white (leave out the busty bit if it's a fashion magazine like Vogue). Where are the short girls? Girls larger than a size 4? (nothing wrong with being thin but most girls are not a size 4 or smaller while most models are). I would love it if magazines would show that beauty exists outside the narrow range they portray now as it certainly does.
ReplyDeleteWhen I was going to life drawing group (just moved and haven't found a new one yet) I loved the wide range of body types the models had. It was a lot more interesting than to draw the same body type over and over and they were all beautiful from the young college girl to the 60-year-old grandmother.
aclassicallife, I don't know about you, but even if I don't trust people that much I'm willing to assume good faith.
ReplyDelete"A few messy details - cleaned up. Her gorgeous smile - totally authentic!"
ReplyDeleteWell, except for all that makeup.
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ReplyDeletePhoto retouching makes it possible to beef up a guy's physique or give a woman a wasp waist. The resulting images of models in magazines present impossible ideals for people.
ReplyDeleteWhen using Photoshop, many types of editing are done such as retouching. Models are presented as attractively as possible. Whereas in reality, they may not be so. In fact, most are not. But to Seventeen readers, Seventeen promises that it will never alter a girl's body or face shape, and only alter accessory details, such as "flyaway hair," a distracting background, or an outside bra strap. They set up a special blog that takes readers behind the scenes during the photo shoot and shows before and after photos of the restoration. But the question is what if they used Photoshop and lied about it?
However, in my opinion, basic retouching methods include resizing, color correction, shape adjustment, or defect removal.
As a retouching example, the natural teeth whitening method in Photoshop has shown below-----
1. From the toolbar, select the lasso tool.
2. Make a selection area of your teeth.
3. Create a Hue/Saturation Layer
4. Modify the edit options to yellow.
5. Reduce the saturation slider
6. Modify the edit mode again to Master
7. Now use the Lightness slider to increase the brightness. It will give you natural whitening teeth.
learn more/read more about Photo Editing for Magazine here.
For publishing the piece, I'm grateful. Your key conclusions about the lesson for the photo retouching service are ones I concur with. However, I will go into more detail in my blog.
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