Airbrushing Backlash: Have They Gone Too Far?

The recent examples of Photoshop use gone awry have made me wonder when we consumers will cry out for our models to look like humans.

Demi Moore’s W cover and Ralph Lauren’s ad took two lovely women and made them look like freaks.

Another example of over-zealous photo editing comes from the wayback machine: In the height of the O.J. Simpson trial, two weekly news magazines ran the same photo of Simpson, but one of the magazines edited the photo to make Simpson’s skin look darker and his visage more menacing.

As a Photoshop user myself, I know how powerful the tool is and how seductive photo editing can be. As a journalist who received quite a bit of ethics training, I don’t even like slight edits that soften cellulite or even out skin tone. I never trust a photo in a women’s magazine, as models are thinned out in fashion mags and filled out in health mags.

What do you think? Do you even bother looking at photos any more, knowing how easily they can be manipulated? Does photo manipulation bother you? Do you think Photoshop should be used with the same limitations as the older, analog forms of photo editing? Or, do you think anything goes in art?

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