Do We Really Want Un-Photoshopped Pictures?

14-year-old Julia Bluhm made national news when she showed up at Seventeen magazine with over 25,000 signatures on her petition asking for the mag to stop digitally altering their pictures. Teens Emma Stydahar and Carina Cruz followed suit with their Spark Movement aimed at getting Teen Vogue to lay off the Photoshop as well. While their efforts were somewhat successful – the editors of Seventeen agreed not to alter the faces or bodies of girls featured in the mag – they stopped short of agreeing to stop Photoshopping models and celebs nor did they say they would publish any unretouched photo spreads. Teen Vogue listened to the girls but sent them away with a lecture “that Teen Vogue is a great magazine, being unfairly accused.”

And while I’m 100% on board with the teens’ stated mission – “It’s time for an end to the digitally enhanced, unrealistic “beauty” we see in the pages of magazines. We are demanding that teen magazines stop altering natural bodies and faces so that real girls can be the new standard of beauty.” – I will admit to some ambivalence about the use of Photoshop in general.

I’ll admit it: My family picture is Photoshopped*. Yes, this one right here.

Allison took an absolutely stunning picture but there were still tweaks I wanted to make. First, I cropped it in a little closer. More family, less background. Next, I boosted the lighting a little bit. I just wanted to bring out the brilliant colors of the leaves like they looked in real life. Lastly I removed a stain on Jelly Bean’s chin from where she drooled lollipop juice. Someday will I regret not leaving that little bit of evidence of my bribery and her babyhood? Or will I just be glad I have a beautiful family picture? I’m not positive but I can tell you right now that I have hundreds of pictures of her with food on her face and only one where everyone is clean, smiling at the camera and not picking their (or anyone else’s) nose.

In addition, every picture I post on this blog has been digitally monkeyed with. I try to keep it minimal – the goal being that I just want the picture to look as beautiful as the real life thing, not better – but every photo at least gets cropped, watermarked with my copyright and the lighting corrected. Sometimes I go a bit further. While I don’t ever change my own or the Gym Buddies’ faces or bodies, I do always edit out crotch sweat.  Because even if you can’t see crotch sweat on cotton pants in daylight, the camera flash has an interesting way of bringing it out. I have also removed showy nips, excessively large zits, weird reflections on faces, butt cracks and extraneous strangers in the background.  It’s just something a girl does for her girlfriends, you know? Back in the old days it was your girlfriends’ job to make sure your skirt wasn’t tucked into your slip but since nobody wears slips nowadays (except me, I have a collection!) now it’s our job to make sure nobody has a tampon string hanging out of their bikini bottoms before the photo gets posted on Facebook.

Here’s a good example from our Great Hula Hoop Experiment:

Before Editing

After Editing

Funny how Photoshop fixed my tongue sticking out…;)

The thing is, this type of Photoshopping is so common now that it is almost mundane. I think most people these days are okay with some incidental editing like the kind I used on our family pic or on my blog pics. It’s expected even. But lighting and cropping are one thing – it gets murkier the farther in you go, especially when it comes to the human form. I had one sister whiten her teeth on her family Christmas card and the first thing I did when I opened it was call her and scream “What tooth whitening system are you using? I MUST HAVE IT!!” Her teeth didn’t look fake but they were so perfectly luminous that it was the very first thing that drew my eyes in the picture. If it had been an ad for toothpaste it would have been brilliant. Unfortunately it wasn’t an ad.

Photoshopping humans can run the gamut from subtly removing a shadow or sheen obscuring a face to all the way into uncanny valley where the person looks humanoid instead of human. So where do you draw the line? It’s easy to say that models shouldn’t have their waists digitally whittled but what about smoothing out the wrinkles on their t-shirt? Does it just show the shirt to its fullest saleable potential or does it make it seem like she’s lacking the natural skin folds that happen when a person bends at the waist? What about adding filters to add effects like a retro vibe or a grittier look to the finished product – art or artifice? How about those photo services that allow you to swap heads from one pic to another so as to get the perfect pose – all the pieces are the same but the puzzle is different? Is a zit different than a large wrinkle? Is there such a thing as ironic Photoshopping? And then there are all the controversial photo edits like when they reverse-shopped Cameron Diaz to remove those v-lines and vascularity that come from an “overly muscular” body.

I think we can all agree that in many cases Photoshopping has gone too far. Some of the ways it’s been used in marketing have passed egregious and are downright evil. But I also think that Photoshop is part of how things work these days. Asking professional magazines to ban it entirely seems a tad unrealistic. And even if, say, Teen Vogue agreed to never photoshop another picture in their mag again, would we really like that? A large part of the whimsy in fashion spreads comes from artful digital enhancement not to mention how convenient it is to be able to fix mistakes like lighting problems that would take much longer and be more expensive to fix with retakes than with a computer.

I’m certainly not saying that Ralph Lauren should get away with turning an adult woman into a stickbug or that we shouldn’t educate people on how those slick advertisements are made. But I don’t think it’s the technology that’s the problem. It’s society’s deeply unrealistic standard of female beauty. Insanely long, thick eyelashes would continue to be sold as the ideal whether they are the product of glued-on falsies and makeup or of a computer whiz. A tiny waist would continue to be fetishized whether it’s through elaborate corsetry or through digital slimming. And is one illusion better than the other? While I commend the teens for their activism, I think they’re diluting their message by focusing so much on the digital. In the end I think we won’t believe that we’re beautiful until we can accept that everyone is beautiful. Because there isn’t just one way to be beautiful.

Don’t nix the Photoshop**. Fix the minds of the people who are using the Photoshop.

How do you feel about photoshop bans? Would you just prefer them to be labelled as digitally enhanced or would the label become meaningless? Do you digitally enhance your pics at all?

*I use “photoshopping” loosely. The actual program I use is Paint.net – it’s free and has almost as much functionality as the real Photoshop.

22 Comments

  1. There’s a difference, as I think you’re saying (it’s been a long day, lol!) between retouching and the kind of photoshopping that magazines have resorted to over the past few years. Cropping starlets’ waists, thinning their thighs, making them taller/slimmer/utterly unlike how they actually LOOK is different from removing a blemish or some lollipop drool.
    I absolutely agree that the larger issue is what kind of “beauty” we’re selling to our kids and ourselves. When 4 year-olds want to diet and 6 year-olds want to be sexy, something is very wrong.

  2. I agree with you, Charlotte. The problem isn’t the digital enhancement, it’s the beauty standards of our culture. Even without digital enhancements people can use lighting tricks, make up, and perspective tricks to create the “perfect” model. It’s just less expensive to do it later on the computer than taking all that time up front.

  3. I had a professional head shot taken (for business purposes) and the photographer photoshopped me to such an extent I don’t think I look like me: perfectly smooth skin, white teeth, white eyes. Really, for a business photo, crazy

  4. I like it. This is a formal post for me. I am benefited by it.

  5. I was talking with my 15 year old niece about this just this weekend. I think the problem isn’t the type of photoshopping you are talking about. The problem is when we start making thighs slimmer and changing shapes and looks. I’m all about removing zits and “swoob” (new term I learned from said niece – sweaty boob), but not about defining chins and basically giving the models a digital face lift or tummy tuck.

    Still, I think it is about changing personal attitudes. I doubt we will ever get to the point where we eliminate this kind of thing completely, but if we raise kids with great self esteem, I think that will go a long way towards helping the issue.

    That 14 year old girl is my hero though.

  6. Yeah, it’s so hard to say where to draw the line. I do a fair amount of photography and I always mess with my photos digitally. The thing is if you shoot in RAW (which any professional photog does) you have to. But that’s just color and things so no big deal, IMO. I also have been known to remove a blotch (mostly only from my own face) or whiten teeth a bit. I think that’s different though than changing something that would otherwise take a surgical procedure. That blemish might not be on my face in a week but my nose would still look the same. I guess that’s where I have a problem.

  7. You make good points! I also like to boost the color and lighting in my photos before publishing or posting them–or before adding them to my family scrapbook.

    I think the photoshopping that I disagree with are the tricks that shave inches off a model’s waistline, creating unrealistic expectations for consumers–especially young, impressionable girls.

  8. I disagree with you. For young girls like myself who are most directly influenced by media, we often aren’t able to recognize whether something is photoshopped. So even if it saves someone the embarrassment of having a visible pimple in the photo, it conveys the message that acne is something that should be hidden when it is something that’s normal and happens to everyone. If there aren’t people we see on tv with acne, how are we supposed to know it’s okay to have a blemish? If there was no photoshop, then people wouldn’t feel as much the need to be perfect constantly because even the people in pictures wouldn’t be perfect.

  9. I don’t mind photo clean up (colour/contrast) or the odd blemish removal. It’s when you start changing how a person looks or whitening their teeth or making them look…well, not like them. THAT is when I dislike it.
    I am used to the scientific field where people want to “clean up” images for publication but there are very strict rules about what we can and cannot do. Basically no editing of the actual image other than tweaking lighting and contrast. NO removal/change of things. Why? Because otherwise it isn’t true and someone can’t duplicate the work. If only real life were so stringent.

    In all honestly I am getting a bit annoyed at the oversaturation colour editing a lot of photographers use now in some images. It doesn’t look real.

  10. Aesthetically, to see a zit on the nose of a cover model wouldn’t be easy on the eyes. No bones about it! But when my daughters are older and beg to stay home from school till this THING on her face is gone, it sure would be nice to have a teen mag to whip out and show them just how normal they are. And then call the school to say she’s sick…just for one day ;0)

    ~Kari

    • I’m on the third and final day of my How to Make Her Want You, Keep You, & Please You Forever for guys, but tomorrow I’m switching gears . My 2yo has a heartwrenching habit that has made me wonder something: At what point and why do we ever stop actually asking to be loved?

      Dreamingintherealworld.blogspot.com

  11. I definitely agree there is a difference between retouching stuff and changing stuff. On my food photos, they are often cropped, lighting changed, maybe sharpened edges. That’s about it. I don’t really have any issues with removing spots – spots come and go – they are not part of who you are. But I don’t really think magazines should change body parts and shapes.

    I don’t see filters as being much of an issue – after all you could buy filters for film cameras. Its just a way of creating a different artistic effect.

  12. Our last family pics, the photographer switched heads around to make sure everyone was smiling, and she edited out a scar on my 4-year-old’s head. That one I was a little weirded by. The picture looks nicer without the scar, but it’s part of him. I would have left that in.

    I’m all for basic photoshopping to make people look their best, but not someone else’s best, or some fake idea of best.

  13. I think there’s a difference between minor retouches and major edits like we frequently see in magazines. I think really, the photoshopping pandemic is just a manifestation of the unhealthy and unattainable ideals we place on people. There is nothing inherently wrong with photoshopping, the problem is the underlying reasons for the excessive photoshopping. In your case, you’re photoshopping to save your friends from embarrassment, and protect your IP. Neither of those reasons is crazy, or based on unreasonable expectations. However, it’s arguable that Jelly Bean having a clean face, free of lollipop juice, was an unhealthy and unattainable ideal for your family photo 😛

    (love the family pics! your family is so beautiful!)

  14. I work for a newspaper. We ALL use photoshop, or similar photo editing software. Every newspaper uses some form of it. Yet you don’t see people protesting our use of it like you do with fashion magazines.

    Part of digital photography, when you’re using the high-end pro cameras, involves post processing in some program, basically taking the place of what used to be done in the dark room. Some of it’s simply unavoidable, and part of the process of getting the image out of the camera and into a form that the printer, or layout software, can use.

    Where we draw the line ethically is staying true to what we’re reporting. (I mean newspapers – not tabloids.) We tweak the coloring so that, by the time it goes through the printing press, it will actually look on the paper the way it looked in real life. We tweak the lighting to compensate if we didn’t quite get the settings right the first time – if it’s over-exposed, under-exposed, not cropped correctly, the white balance off (especially when it’s breaking news and we’re trying to get the photo quickly). Again, making the photo actually look like what happened. Sometimes we’ll crop photos or alter them to take things out, but only background information that isn’t relative to the image and only distracts from it, without changing the meaning or what’s portrayed. If we ran a picture of a housefire, we might crop it so the firefighters are the focus of the image, getting rid of neighbors who are just standing on the side distracting from the fire and firefighters. It would be totally different if we cropped the photo in close, cutting out the part that showed TV cameras and the fact that the “fire” is really a TV set and completely controlled.

    The line that seems to offend people – and that we don’t cross – is when you go beyond simply compensating for settings the photographer didn’t get right so the photo looks like reality (or even covering a zit the makeup artist missed) and altering it to the point it’s no longer a representation of reality. After a certain point, it becomes like other art forms – it can create truly stunning, beautiful and moving images, but images that are intended to be an interpretation of reality instead of an exact representation of it. The problem, then, is when those images are represented as reality and not as an artistic interpretation of reality – like when magazines photoshop models, not just to remove zits or flyaway hairs or adjust for lighting, but to make the model look impossibly skinny. I don’t think there’s anything wrong necessarily with them running such altered photos – those magazines are for entertainment and fantasy (really, how many people reading Vogue are actually able to buy the clothes in it?) – as long as they’re presented that way.

  15. I think it is about what we are talking about. Kids have so much pressure these days & eating disorders & body dismorphia (is this the right word) – this is a hard call. I heard a story today that said 6 years olds want to be sexy!!!

    AT mt age & even younger – cause I was never “pretty” or even “cute” by society’s standards, Now, I Photoshop most pics of me – not all but some…

    Kids – they are getting way too much crap telling them to be & look a certain way…

  16. I agree with Jody – it depends on the situtation.

    My husband is a photographer by trade and he recently did a session with a couple of clients who are friends of mine. He retouched the images, making them look a little thinner (by adjusting the contrast), a bit younger (by eliminating the depth of wrinkles), and a bit more energetic (by adding a bit more sparkle in the eyes). When they got their prints, they were so excited! “OMG! We look so… great!” Photoshop and other editing software can be such a great tool – when used to highlight things that are already present, of course. I think that consumers need to realize that we don’t buy magazines because they look like real life. If that were true, every single home decorating magazine would need a major makeover (think Hoarders).

  17. This is a very thoughtful and honest post. For me, it is easy to declare photoshop the root of all body image problems, until I do a little navel gazing and think about my own photo touch-ups. I agree with you that there is a major difference. Thanks for sharing your thoughts!

  18. Great post Charlotte!
    You make a good point about altering pictures. All photoes in any magazine have been altered. Even an ad for tractors and fertilizer.

    Plus, a photo is not what we see with the naked eye. The camera itself will alter the real life image.
    The biggest concern I have is why are we blaming the media for insecurity we feel when we see an image? I just got back from a strength conference and many of the guys there were. Jogger and stronger than I was.

    But why blame them for my reaction? Why do I have any right to tell someone to not present an image or appearance just because it makes me uncomfortable?

    Sure, it’s not good to present an image that’s fake but passed off as real, but even a real and in the flesh image can produce the same feelings. So what then?

    Ah, now you’ve got me all philosophical. Thanks for always opening up my mind and helping me see differently.

  19. Before/After = me laughing hysterically out loud. Awesome.

    Over the last few months I’ve seen several different sets of images of celebrities without Photoshop and then with Photoshop. Until then, I did not realize how MUCH “retouching” was being done in magazines, adds, EVERTHING we see! However, realizing that was almost a relief to me. I felt relieved that these images are not what those people REALLY look like. I feel like I’m able to cut myself more slack with that knowledge. Hey, even Jessica Alba doesn’t look as good as she does on the cover of Cosmo, so why should I try to?

  20. I like your family photo. You have a beautiful family. For me it is okay if the photos are Photoshopped or not. But it is important that the editing of the photos must be on the positive way.

  21. I am doing a homework assignment thing about thisand Ithink it is good