Please ignore the retoucher behind the curtain

[gement]

From officialgaiman:

Before and After magazine covers

Scroll the mouse over to see the skin lose its unreally rosy glow, the cheekbones reshape, the butt tuck in, and the foot move to its original ackward angle!

It's amazing what people look like with their real waistlines. I'd like to make this required viewing for every junior high student and see what it does to anorexia statistics.

Comments

[garillama.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I liked that. . .

I wish I had my own airbrusher. . .it'd make those school pictures look so much better. . .

:P

[garillama.livejournal.com]

And you'll notice, in the one with a man, the only retouching done on him is in the lighting. . .And they wonder why eating disorders are more prevalent in women. . .

[capnexposition.livejournal.com]

actually, there WAS a satisfying shot of Usher having his creases and folds erased.

[garillama.livejournal.com]

I'll have to find that one :)

[sistawendy.livejournal.com]

I'd like to make this required viewing for every junior high student and see what it does to anorexia statistics.

Damn straight! There was a short at the film festival called "Wet Dreams and False Images" that showed retouchers at work, and the reactions of some young men to the before and after shots. It was painfully funny.

[gement.livejournal.com]

I saw that one! It's why I leaped on this immediately. The nineteen year old barber who was willing to go to the mat that this ass was real... heehee.

The photo I remember most clearly was the one of a woman face-on in a long black dress, where they took something like 6 inches out of her waist because she looked too "imposing and masculine" with the nearly straight hang of the dress, and they were going for "willowy". That's the particular slope that I always think looks WRONG on myself, so it was nice to figure out why.

[dianthus.livejournal.com]

woo! I feel much sexier now.

[capnexposition.livejournal.com]

Oh the humanity!

[vixyish.livejournal.com]

As rollick pointed out, it's interesting to see how no matter how incredibly unbelievably skinny a woman is, she still apparently needs a tummy tuck. And rounder boobs.

I was also interested in some of the tattoo removal going on. Some were left, and others removed. I wonder what their criteria are.

[randomdreams.livejournal.com]

It's clear that tattoos are in a cultural middle-ground, where a LOT is shockingly unacceptable, but a little is cool. I saw one used to disguise a navel, but the creepyskinny woman with the major ones all up and down her arms was ruthlessly bleached.

[gement.livejournal.com]

Erykah Badu (she's a fairly funky singer, who was on the Lilith Fair tour I attended).

Here's the funny part: If you go to "work", which has final magazine covers, you can see that the splash caption on her is "Erykah Badu - Natural Beauty" and they've erased all the little tribal tattooing around her eyes.

[randomdreams.livejournal.com]

That's doubly creepy. Trebly, even. She's WAY too skinny in her natural state: one of the few people they plumped up a little during retouching.

[morinon.livejournal.com]

I'd found that a while ago.

[littlemystories.livejournal.com]

Thank you thank you thank you! I've been passing this link around, it's very satisfying.

[irgth.livejournal.com]

There does seem to be a growing trend toward less extreme retouching, or at least I hope so. In photography forums, I've noticed a lot of people getting flack for retouching an image to the point where it no longer represents the person in the original photo. Personally, I try to get rid of temporary blemishes, soften the skin slightly, brighten up eyes and teeth, and that is usually about it.