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Examples of digital manipulation in celebrity pictures

  
  

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Tuna Ghost: Pratt knot hero
20:08 / 25.02.06
Well, nevermind that first question, I guess.
 
 
Tuna Ghost: Pratt knot hero
20:22 / 25.02.06
I suppose one example is that celebrities are put on pedestals in our society and many teenage girls strive to look like their idol.

So it's the kids we're worried about here. The adults know better.

Seeing manipulated images of that idol with an unrealistic body shape means the girls can begin to believe it's possible to achieve that level of thinness, when it actually isn't without getting very ill.

Which would happen even without severly altered images. I saw it growing up, I see it today. People trying to be as thin as the very real, very unaltered (digitally) Girl Next Door.

I don't argue with the idea that western society places an unhealthy amount of attention on one's physical beauty, but I don't think doctored photographs of celebrities are as accountable for this as some are suggesting.
 
 
Olulabelle
21:15 / 25.02.06
Don't you think they have a part to play though?

I'm not suggesting they are entirely to blame, but doctoring photos of celebrities to make them look thinner than they already are must surely be fanning the flames.
 
 
ibis the being
21:57 / 25.02.06
The problem I have with the argument being presented is that when you're talking about visual advertising media, the job of the ad is to present an attractive & compelling imagery that sells a product. You just can't get away from the necessity of visual advertising to be visually appealing. You'll never find a flower in nature as perfect as it appears in, say, a Kodak ad. Nor a burger in real life that's as perfect as it appears in, say, a Wendy's ad. But the Kodak flower does not have all the advantages or lures that a real flower has - its smell, its variability and the way the light comes through the petals as the sun moves through the sky. The Wendy's TV burger does not have smell or taste or context (you're hungry and driving by a Wendy's restaurant). It has to be exaggerated visually to have any effect, really.

In the case of human beauty... yes, the standard of beauty presented in ads featuring real people is unattainable. But what would be better? Attainable beauty? It's still just physical beauty. Would it be better to send a message to women that says, "You should be just like this pretty but average-looking woman." Take the new Dove ads for example - featuring photographs of less skinny, ostensibly more average American women. Still, they're just models. Do we know anything about them as people? A visual medium is stuck with visual imagery to convey its message. The bottom line is that young girls, and all other people, shouldn't look to physical attributes as paths to happiness. They should strive to be smarter, more ambitious, kinder, better educated, and more compassionate... but not only are those qualities virtually impossible to express in an advertising photograph, they're not likely to sell, say, an ipod.

It's particularly hard to fault companies that make their money on the products that are supposed to make people more beautiful & physically attractive. If a cosmetics company presented a makeup ad featuring a totally average looking woman with normal healthy (but not idealized) skin and just a touch of mascara, would anyone be compelled to buy more makeup? Probably we'd think, "Well, that's about how I look now, guess I don't need any makeup." Maybe we should ban cosmetics and designer clothing instead then? Or just ask them to make fewer, or uglier, products? Or maybe we should compel cosmetics and clothing companies to print messages like "Looks don't matter" and "Beauty is on the inside" on all their advertising, the way Phillip Morris now has to campaign against smoking?
 
 
Tuna Ghost: Pratt knot hero
22:12 / 25.02.06
[shrugs]

In the sense that they are futher propagating a fantasy, I suppose. But when even the most attractive celebrities aren't photogenic enough, doesn't it just make that fantasy seem even more fictional and totally unreal?

But I suppose if we are considering the children, who don't know any better, then...um...shit, I dunno. Don't parents have some responsibility here? Teaching kids how to tell what's real and what isn't and all that?
 
 
Tuna Ghost: Pratt knot hero
22:13 / 25.02.06
The above was directed towards Lula.
 
 
Olulabelle
22:23 / 25.02.06
I don't know where this 'consider the children' thing has come from. Teenage girls are very far from children and that's who I was referencing as an example of who might be affected by these images.

Ibis, I'm concerned about the manipulation of the images, not trying to promote a situation whereby companies try and sell beauty products using average women. There are many amazing models and celebrities with flawless skin and who embody physical perfection as idealised by the western world whom the companies can use to sell things. They don't need doctoring, they're beautiful and can sell products anyway.

So my question is about the need to manipulate images of people who are already pretty much perfect and turn them into impossible physical specimens.
 
 
ibis the being
22:34 / 25.02.06
Okay... well, I'm looking at digital manipulation as just part of the art of photo editing. Photo editing preceeded Photoshop, it's just a lot easier and faster to do more to alter photos. Stating the obvious there, but the point is that for the artist it's about the image, and presenting the best, most attractive image possible with the technology at hand. As an artist, I have trouble with the idea of restricting a photo editor's tools or censoring his art because of the message it might send... but that's a tangential point really.

Still, for me, it boils down to the same bottom line - arguing about "how beautiful" (to steal part of Smoothly's phrasing) or "how realistic" is rather like rearranging deck chairs on the Titantic (awful simile, but I'm rushing to get my point over). Modeling yourself after attainable beauty is no more constructive than modeling yourself after totally unattainable and even imaginary beauty. If we ought to campaign or advocate for more awareness about anything, it should be about being a better, not prettier, person.

And I do still have trouble buying the notion that the images merely being "out there" corrupts our ideas about what a person looks like. I think once again I may be repeating or paraphrasing Smoothly Weaving, but people are all around us, celebrities are not. In the end I don't care about how the burger in front of me is lopsided, the tomatoes are a little pale, and golly you can't even see the mustard. It tastes good.
 
 
Tuna Ghost: Pratt knot hero
22:50 / 25.02.06
I don't know where this 'consider the children' thing has come from. Teenage girls are very far from children and that's who I was referencing as an example of who might be affected by these images.

My bad. Didn't mean to confuse the two. My point (regarding the knowledge of what's real and what isn't) still stands, though.
 
 
Olulabelle
23:05 / 25.02.06
Ibis, I'm still not convinced that I ever posited the suggestion that this was about 'how beautiful', but it's interesting that people seem to want to talk about the images in terms of levels of beauty. I personally think that there are plenty of stunning people who can very adequately do the job of selling products, without the need to resort to image manipulation to the extent of some of the pictures on the site.

Do you personally think that the uber-thinness portrayed in some of those pictures is beautiful? Would you say it is something to aspire to? If it isn't, is it OK for the media or advertising companies to suggest that it is?

Do you think that people might compare themselves against that unobtainable beauty scale? Where do you think they might scale themselves against it? Do you think they might find themselves lacking or not? If they find themselves lacking, does that affect how they might perceive themselves?

Does it matter anyway or do you think that how the female form is projected within society (and specifically when it is projected as an unrealistic image) is not relevant to how that society functions as long as companies are able to freely sell their products?
 
 
Smoothly
23:11 / 25.02.06
Okay, back (from a bar with a bunch of people much better looking than me. God it's depressing).

Aaanyway, first of all, this kind of conversation is just the kind of thing I come to Barbelith for. The link at the beginning went round my office (an office largely devoted to finessing celebrity images) a few weeks ago and this kind of discussion was noticeable by its absence. I'm tempted to broaden this out with comparisons to other ways in which human qualities are represented, but I'm still weighing it up. Maybe another thread. Point is, I love you all, hic!

Alas - I'd be quite interested to read more of that article - and if you'd PM a login, that'd be great - but I do wonder how much the kind effect talked about (in reference to Fiji, for example) is down to the airbrushing of celebrity images, and how much is to do with the introduction/presentation of Western celebrity images. I mean, would unphotoshopped images of Paris, Nicole etc not have had the same impact?

The larger issue of how cultures develop aesthetics aside, we were talking about touching-up photographs. My question was how this is different from touching-up the original (with make-up etc). I just got the impression that some people saw the 'after' shots as being more like Manga/Hentai images - gross stylisations of what real people look like. I don't see them like this. I see pictures of real people made to look like slightly younger, fitter, less blemished people.

So I don't really buy Lula's claim that these are 'unrealistic body shapes'. These might be exceptional body shapes, and not realistic body shapes for everyone, but what body shape is realistic for *everyone*?

But, to respond to people directly...

Mordant: I don't find being around conventionally attractive people confidence-sapping either. I'm more interested in, impressed by (and intimidated by) personality and accomplishments.

This is why I'm really tempted to broaden this discussion out (to how personality and accomplishment are finessed in much the same way, and why idealised versions of these things aren't equally problematic - more so, perhaps, for being uncontroversial in the way looks aren't) but I hope you'll forgive me for not doing so here and now.

Actually you'd actually have to go quite a long way to find someone who wanted to look like me

We've never met, but I've seen pictures of you and I can't believe that you don't appreciate how enviable it is for many to look, at the very worst, normal - averagely attractive. Maybe the picture I've seen have cleverly concealed your deformities, in which case I apologise.

What I'd like to see would be more awareness of the degree to which images are manipulated, and a bigger variety of different body-types in the media. Does that sound reasonable?

Yeah, me too. God, *me too* (again, we haven't met). But I don't think glossing over Toby McGuire's zits has much to do with this.

All of the above [make-up etc] are realistic, non-injurious options for the average person.

Maybe we're looking at different sites, but nor are the things simulated by FluidEffect.


Lula: I'm concerned about the manipulation of the images, not trying to promote a situation whereby companies try and sell beauty products using average women. There are many amazing models and celebrities with flawless skin and who embody physical perfection as idealised by the western world whom the companies can use to sell things.

But Nina argues that there are *not* celebrities with flawless skin, and that this is the problem with this sort of manipulation - that these are impossible standards to set. As it happens, I agree with you in that respect. These aren't impossible bodies, they're just bodies, complexions etc that the celebrity connected to the campaign don't happen to have at the time of the shoot. Nicole Richie, for example, has been thinner than she appears in the 'after' shot there. You can argue about representations of unhealthily thin people in the media, but that's a different discussion.

The other points I'd make about the purpose of editorial photography have been made better by ibis, so I'm not going to try. Although I will say that I've been sensing a note of "Of course, *I* understand the difference, but the poor saps who read fashion magazines won't", which I find mildly troubling. Ditto people claiming that *they* know what/who looks beautiful.
 
 
Olulabelle
23:22 / 25.02.06
Oh, golly, I sincerely hope that I'm not coming across as 'I understand but either people won't' because that's certainly not true. I am certainly aware of how I feel about myself when I look at the images I see in magazines, even knowing about the work that goes into creating those images.

I do appreciate the art in it, and the beauty of the people but that picture of Nicole Richie was just fine beforehand, I think it was unneccessary to retouch it regardless of whether or not she had been thinner before.

I'm glad you want to talk about this Smoothly, thank you for discussing it.
 
 
Smoothly
23:32 / 25.02.06
You too, Lula. It's really interesting I think.
I wasn't thinking about you in particular in that last bit, although you did say Seeing manipulated images of that idol with an unrealistic body shape means the girls can begin to believe it's possible to achieve that level of thinness, when it actually isn't without getting very ill. 'Girls', but not you, right? And your Do you personally think that the uber-thinness portrayed in some of those pictures is beautiful? Would you say it is something to aspire to? If it isn't, is it OK for the media or advertising companies to suggest that it is? line does sound a bit rhetorical.
 
 
Regrettable Juvenilia
23:50 / 25.02.06
I see pictures of real people made to look like slightly younger, fitter, less blemished people.

Not being able to link directly to these images is a disadvantage, but this simply isn't true, unless you believe that having a three-dimensional face is somehow a "blemish" or a symptom of being "fitter". Many of the changes are to smooth out contours which, I'm sorry, are just NOT the result of age, or ill-use - nor are they "blemishes".

I'm still not convinced by the assumption that most of the changes made result in an appearance that corresponds to being "fitter", in the sense of "healthier" - a rather lax use of the term is occuring here, methinks.
 
 
Smoothly
23:59 / 25.02.06
You could still direct people to examples, Fly. Page 2, first column second row, or whatever.

I take your point that the kind of appearance being reproduced in these enhancements doesn't necessarily map onto 'fitter' or 'healthier', but I still maintain that they're not 'impossible' in the sense that they are exhibited by real people.
 
 
Tryphena Absent
00:02 / 26.02.06
These aren't impossible bodies, they're just bodies, complexions etc that the celebrity connected to the campaign don't happen to have at the time of the shoot.

That's bull though. They wipe out the rolls that every single person on this planet has when they lie on their side and prop themselves on their elbow. It is physically impossible for a body not to lump up in some way in that position but every celebrity has that airbrushed out. That's what creates unrealistic expectation- it's the glamour shots that create a body that no human could ever have, not the ones that wipe out freckles and make a person thinner.
 
 
Smoothly
00:02 / 26.02.06
Examples, please.
 
 
Tryphena Absent
00:05 / 26.02.06
Portfolio, before/after, fourth photo down on the right.
 
 
Tuna Ghost: Pratt knot hero
00:12 / 26.02.06
For that matter, 2nd page 3rd from the top on the right. The photoshop procedure in that picture blatantly erases the effect of gravity on the female form, which I think is a tad unrealistic.
 
 
dmj2012
00:15 / 26.02.06
Meybe I'm the odd man out, but I've always thought magazine photos look fake, even back when it was done with airbrushing rather than using an app like Photoshop. And this was before I ever knew that photos were retouched. They just looked "off" to me.

Personally I think it's a shame that someone might look at a photo of a celeb and compare themselves to it unfavorably. Then again it's a natural part of human nature to do so. In a perfect world the media would act responsibly, but the world we live in is far from perfect. That being the case, does it make more sense to rage against a trend or to change that part of you that looks at an external image and feels bad? I think all societal change happens when enough individuals in that society change.

This type of change is not an easy an easy thing to acheive. And I don't just mean understanding on an intellectual level. That part's easy. I'm talking about understanding it on a visceral level, where you can look at a photo such as one of these and no longer have a strong emotional reaction to it such as jealousy, hatred, rage, shame, lust, etc.
 
 
Smoothly
00:16 / 26.02.06
Hmm. Maybe, at a pinch. I think someone a little slimmer might be able to achieve that gradient of curve without a crease. Dunno. I take your point, good example, but you have a problem with *that*?

And in terms of gravity, these pictures have nothing on clothes, let alone cosmetic surgery.
 
 
Regrettable Juvenilia
00:22 / 26.02.06
*beats head against floor*
 
 
Olulabelle
00:23 / 26.02.06
Smoothly, the 'not me, but them' thing stems I think from trying not to be anecdotal or autobiographical. Trying to depersonalise what I write. Sorry for that. I guess it does come across a bit wrongly.
 
 
Tryphena Absent
00:26 / 26.02.06
Yes I do because in a world where it's not really cool for a paranoid 16 year old to wear a swimsuit a few folds, which you assume thin people don't have because they never do in any pictures, can make a lot of difference.

I was a size 8 at the age of 16. Did I know how thin I was, did I fuck. And why? Because my body wasn't like the bodies I saw in magazines and at that age you don't know about photoshop. You don't how the world works. You assume that photos are just photos and that attractive people look... like that naturally. Well they don't as all of those pictures prove. I don't think presenting people properly, showing them that sight is going to stop anorexics becoming anorexics, I think it will help your average 16 year old feel better on the beach and in a club and on the street.
 
 
Olulabelle
00:31 / 26.02.06
Smoothly:

Clothes = Physical thing that one puts on, and can sometime help with shape when people look at you IRL.

Plastic Surgery = Physical amendment to oneself that can sometimes make one look 'better' (or at least different) IRL.

Digital manipulation = Change that someone makes to a picture, in order to make the person on the picture look 'better' in the picture but which is often impossible to reproduce IRL.
 
 
Tuna Ghost: Pratt knot hero
00:38 / 26.02.06
And in terms of gravity, these pictures have nothing on clothes, let alone cosmetic surgery.

I would (tentatively) suggest that the woman pictured had the benefit of both of those things and yet digital alteration was still utilized.
 
 
Tuna Ghost: Pratt knot hero
00:42 / 26.02.06
I don't think presenting people properly, showing them that sight is going to stop anorexics becoming anorexics, I think it will help your average 16 year old feel better on the beach and in a club and on the street.

Which is not the concern of advertisers or photograph adjusters, nor should it be.
 
 
Smoothly
00:44 / 26.02.06
Nina, you know me; I look shit. Men who get their kit off in magazines all look better than I do, and would do without any kind of airbrushing. But even if we had no pictures of attractive people in magazines, I'd still think I look shit because men *in real life* look better than me.
I might be wrong, but I imagine the average 16-year-old on the beach is paying more attention to the other girls on the beach than recalling the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit edition.
 
 
Tryphena Absent
00:49 / 26.02.06
Girls on the beach don't know what they look like. They are remembering the imperfections from the last time they looked in the mirror and the comparisons they drew then.
 
 
Smoothly
01:00 / 26.02.06
Fair enough. I should probably defer on this then. I just didn't realise that most people get a fix on what normal people look like from photoshoots in magazines.
 
 
Tuna Ghost: Pratt knot hero
01:04 / 26.02.06
That's news to me too.
 
 
Regrettable Juvenilia
01:18 / 26.02.06
Sarcasm always wins!
 
 
Tryphena Absent
01:26 / 26.02.06
Fine then. Smoothly wins.
 
 
Olulabelle
01:43 / 26.02.06
I just didn't realise that most people get a fix on what normal people look like from photoshoots in magazines.

I don't think they 'get a fix on what normal people look like' but they do get a fix on what they should be aspiring to. In particular young females do. They do compare themselves.
 
 
Tryphena Absent
01:47 / 26.02.06
Forget it. They just don't get what the fuck we're talking about. What's the point of fighting a battle like this when the people you're arguing with are wilfully misunderstanding how kids respond to images they see everyday? If they don't get what those images mean now when they're bombarded everyday then they're never going to get it.
 
  

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