Anna Hill is a 24-year-old university student from East Carolina. And for a digital photography class, she decide to have a play with Photoshop and create the below faux-Photoshop ads.
They show just how much various other ads (for fashion, or beauty, or just about anything ever) manipulate their images so that we are tricked into thinking that we ought to be poreless, incredibly good-looking superhumans.
Anna shared the below pics on Reddit. Take a look:
On Reddit, Anna wrote that looking at the different images really made her realise how different her perception of beauty has become:
One thing I noticed when I was doing these (is) that when I suddenly went back to the unedited layer, it looked so wrong and kinda gross… It is kind of fun to play “character creation” on yourself, but it makes you realize how screwed up your perception can get. But a lot of those super edited airbrushed models don’t look that much better than us without makeup and editing. :)
We love a good pushback against Photoshop, especially anything that exposes how much trickery is really going on behind the scenes. And good on Anna for going through her own processes to realise exactly what’s really possible when you’re got a magic computer wand on your side.
You can find Anna’s website here and also take a look below at some Photoshopped pics of celebrities to see how they differ…
The Victoria’s Secret models, un-Photoshopped…
And some extreme other Photoshop fails…
Has photoshopping changed your perception of beauty? Share this post to raise awareness about the damaging effects of photoshopping…
Top Comments
I actually heard a woman on the TV the other day say we like photoshop because it's escapism, pretty sure she worked for some crappy mag.
As a photographer I try to leave in as much detail as possible. The rule is generally "If it isn't there in 2 weeks, it goes" so basic pimples go. If the model is dehydrated or had a rough night sleeping and has bags under the eyes I'll soften them back to what they normally have every day. Did a photoshoot in the far north where the models face was quite red from the heat and toned that back down to her normal skin colour. Had an older man in a family photo fall over n cut his head on a rock, so I removed the blood + bruising and cut. A model doing a bikini shot that had tight underwear on earlier so she has lines on her skin will also have them removed since they will be gone in a few hours.
I don't alter body shape though. Softening shadows and removing pimples is about the extent we should really go to, making a face completely smooth though isn't good. You can do a lot with lighting to help hide or pronounce features (such as side lighting casts more shadows in one direction and shows more texture). Most of the magic though is done by makeup still for my photos, but I wouldn't dream of removing freckles! Freckles give character and quite frankly look cute...why remove them?