Photoshopped images: the good, the bad and the ugly

Photographer and retoucher Michael Kubeisy believes the trick with Photoshop is knowing when to stop. Here are changes made on this image: 1 Her crow's feet were made softer with the healing brush, which seamlessly corrects imperfections by matching texture and lighting; 2 The whites of her eyes were brightened using the dodge tool; 3 Some flyaway strands hairs on the top of her head were removed; 4 Johnson's teeth were slightly whitened, again using the dodge tool; 5 Her skin was smoothed out and given a soft glow; 6 A blemish was removed from her collarbone; 7 Some lines around her neck were softened, and the carotid artery in her neck was erased.

The graphics editing tool is praised for making people look their best and dissed for setting the bar too high.

By Jeannine Stein
LA Times
August 2, 2009

Kim Kardashian has practically made a living off her curvaceous figure. But the E! network celeb was looking a little less shapely in Complex magazine in April, her body reduced about a dress size, her legs smoothed to near-perfection.

How did readers know? Complex accidentally posted a pre-Photoshopped image of Kardashian on its website -- before her thighs, arms and waist had been digitally sculpted. In a matter of hours the photo was gone. But in that brief time span, those who spotted it got a little reminder that we should think twice about taking photographs at face value.

"My belief," says Scott Kelby, president of the Florida-based National Assn. of Photoshop Professionals, "is that every single major magazine cover is retouched. I don't know how they couldn't be." But don't stop there. Aside from U.S. newspapers, most of which do not permit photos to be manipulated, it's quite possible that the vast majority of images seen in the public arena have been altered.

Photoshop, the go-to graphics editing program that got a foothold in the 1990s, has become so ubiquitous that most of us gaze at faces, bodies and landscapes, not even registering that wrinkles have been diminished, legs lengthened and the sky honed to a dream-like shade of blue. And, unlike its predecessor, airbrushing, anyone can use it.

(More here.)