Photoshop Manipulation

As one walks down the road he or she can see the different styles of people. One girl may wear a pink dress while another has a blue. What causes us to choose different styles is all in our personality right? However we are also greatly influenced by the ads and pictures that surround us on the street. The girl in the pink dress may have seen a Nordstrom add where the model looked fabulous and therefore she just had to have that dress. However it is not the model that looks fabulous but the way she was displayed.

The manipulation of Photoshop has become unreal. It is crazy to see how much models are distorted and made to look skinnier than they really are. Most human beings are far from perfect. There are blemishes on their face, scars on their arms, hair in the wrong post, and so on. Why then do we continue to show that people are perfect in magazines and manipulate Photoshop?

Bonnie Meltzer discussions some of the ethic issues with Photoshop in her article “Digital Photography: A Question of Ethics” (http://www.fno.org/may97/digital.html). She recites an example of one especially questionable editing of a picture.

“I need a picture of Oprah, a new one now that she is thin but we don't have one and we go to press too soon to get one. What shall we do? Let's see, we have an old picture of her. Let's but her head on a thin body. We can do that now, right? Who will know? We just have to match the direction of the head and the body. We don't even have to worry about color. We can match any skin tone. We need to do this now.”

I think that it is important that we start sharing photos without manipulating people’s bodies in them. Who knows maybe the world would be a better place!