Photoshop has been a part of standard technology for years now. Albums dedicated solely to “Photoshop Fails” go viral online weekly. The fashion industry is one of the biggest offenders for photoshop blunders. They consistently release material filled with pictures made at home by a girl who wants to look skinnier in a bikini, or give herself a more hourglass figure and plenty of men alter photos to appear more toned.
There are a million things an individual can do in order to change aspects of their picture if they have the skills, and these skills are rapidly becoming more and more universal. These skills have arrived and are not going anywhere soon.
We love to add filters to our pictures. We feel increasingly more artistic and attractive in control with our photo manipulation. There is no stopping it, but advertisements and magazines need to stay vigilant about the quality of the work they produce and they need to start giving credit to Photoshop artists. In turn, viewers need to stop seeing these pictures as even remotely realistic and begin to fully understand their unrealistic images.
It is of course preferable that our culture has turned to photo manipulation over physical manipulation. Instead of young girls bragging about their implants, we just see their amateur editing on Facebook. Better to take care of your body and change photos than do drastic change and often damage to your body.
Lesser of two evils aside, we should be teaching young people (and ourselves) that Photoshop is art, not an achievement. Magazine covers are not a goal anyone should set for themselves because they are not realistic. Anyone who has ever Googled “celebrity Photoshop examples” can see how drastically their entire bodies are changed in the pictures.
Models are made to look two-dimensional. Ribs, hips, knees, and anything that causes an image that might resemble fat are airbrushed or removed. On the rare occasion that a “plus-sized” model is used, (I use quotes because as a size seven I am far too big to be used as plus-sized model). Photoshop editors take out any definition of meat on a model’s bones. These supposed curvy beauties are just slightly wider than their thin colleagues.
Old Navy recently received bad press from supposedly editing thigh gaps onto plus-sized models wearing jeans. Why is our culture obsessed with thigh gaps anyway? Why are they yet another level of beauty I need to aspire to? Legs are made very close together, and I have caught myself looking in the mirror wondering how wide my stance needs to be to create a gap. Then I remember it is not my responsibility to create my body in the image of someone else’s. If a girl is thin or has a gap between her thighs it is part of what makes her beautiful. However, making it the ideal standard for beauty literally narrows the body positivity women can experience.
We understand that Photoshop is now the norm for the fashion industry and has cemented itself as the standard for anything like magazine covers or advertisements. My issue is unnatural Photoshop, such as giving curvy girls thigh gaps.
The Limited was recently called out for making the upper arms of models so thin all their elbows looked broken, swollen and inverted. Target got a lot of attention a couple weeks ago when someone actually edited out a swimsuit model’s pelvic area giving her a rectangular thigh gap.
We can keep editing our photos, but there are a multitude of alterations advertisers should make to their methods. If an editor asks him or herself if a photograph is physically possible and the answer is no, fix it. Is this singer’s head the same width as we made her waist? Maybe it should be reversed to look more natural. Are we so afraid of human features that we removed this model’s vulva? These are only a few examples of methods that need to be changed. Comedian and actress Tina Fey says that editors should aspire to use Photoshop with the intention of creating the illusion that the photographer caught the model or celebrity on her best day.
In addition to scrutiny, there should be more honesty. If makeup artists, wardrobe consultants, photographers and writers are given credit in an ad or photo shoot then so should the Photoshop artists. Ads should be portrayed as altered art. The sooner we stop thinking of these photos as photos and start thinking of them as art, we can stop comparing ourselves to the impossibly high standards they create.
Photoshop is here to stay, but Photoshop regulation is possible and should be enforced for the sake of accountability and honesty. This regulation is an essential step toward improving individuals’ own body image.
How do you feel about the photo editing used in the fashion industry? Do companies need to start giving credit to Photoshop artists for their altered images of models? What are some other ways we can lessen the negative impact on an individual’s body image these photos create? Let us know how you feel and please send all feedback to opinion@dailycardinal.com.
