Almost everything people see today in advertisements, photography, or billboards along the road, has been manipulated one way or another to sell consumers the product or idea. By seeing these manipulated photos, consumers are convinced that if they purchase this idea or product their life will change for the better. Advertisers have been manipulating photos to persuade consumers for many years, but just recently people have become aware and offended by it. Beliefs of false advertisement and fakery is what is being argued.
Although there are many definitions of photo manipulation, many professionals would describe it as “the application of image-editing techniques to photographs in order to create an illusion or deception” (Photomanipulation).
The act of photo “manipulation” or retouching goes back to the nineteenth century, the 1860s to be exact, when they first called it photo fakery or the Pre-Photoshop era. It all began with the famous portrait of President Abraham Lincoln. The original photograph was of “South Carolina’s politician John Calhoun”, and in 1860 President Lincolns head was placed atop of Calhoun's body (Gorman). Another one of the first manipulated photographs was of “General Ulysses S. Grant astride a hoarse in front of his troops at City Point, Virginia during the American Civil War” (Arthur). The photograph of General Grant was made up of three different images that was put together to look like one. Also, the body of General Grant was not his, it was actually another General who went by the name of Alexander M. Cook. In the pre-digital photoshop era, “more skilled photo manipulators were known to scratch negatives and do multiple exposures with different negatives that allowed them to create images like the one of General Grant” (Gorman). Additionally, the Pulitzer Prize photograph of the 1970 Kent State Massacre taken by John Filo, was also a product of manipulation. The photo originally had a fencepost behind the woman on the ground yelling for help. An anonymous photo editor “removed the post by supposably airbrushing over top of it”, making it look like a continuation of the grass (Gorman). Before the digital age, many of the edits made were unaware by society, making the public believe what they saw was real.
It was not until the year 1990 when the famous Adobe application known as Photoshop came out. Old-fashion fakery was out and the digital age was in. Once Photoshop was created, the amount of images being manipulated was immense. Anywhere from color correction to removing an object from the original photo was being done. Life was easier for photo editors to take an image and make it the complete opposite of how it was originally taken. Even though the application made the photo editors job easier it also made a mess. Photos that were being manipulated started showing up in the media, which impacted the society. Some may look at the edits and believe it made the photo more appealing, but in other ways people may look at the edits and see the idea of what the world or one should look like.
The act of photo manipulation across various means of media promotes self shaming and unhealthy habits for women and teenagers in the United States, rather than advocating confidence and reality of the human body. Such habits turn into eating disorders and life threatening illnesses that could effect a wide spread of people across the nation.
In the past recent years, advertisers and photo editors have been constantly judged for taking a digital photo and making it completely different. By retouching these digital images, they are creating fantasies for many readers. Specifically magazine covers, the readers will most likely see the beautiful and flawless model with the ideal physique that most people want. But the reality is the model was retouched. Advertisers have one goal in mind and that is to sell the product, even if the image needs to be manipulated. Once digital photo editing was introduced, and editors became good at it, the retouching of photos became “ubiquitous” which “created an idealized and unrealistic representation of physical beauty” (Kee). When advertisers promote these images, they are also promoting a beauty standard for society to acknowledge and follow. For woman, the skinny body, perfect long hair, with the ear to ear smile is the standard. For men, the tall, muscular, also with a smile is the standard for them too. These standards caused the use of photoshop and the act of photo manipulation to become the new “norm”. Arguments of why advertisers will not use ‘bigger’ models arise from readers. In a study from Emma Halliwell and Helga Dittmar called “Does Size Matter?”, they state that “‘thinness’ sells, whereas ‘fatness’ does not” (Halliwell). The beauty norms is now not only affecting who is the face of a particular product, but also if the product is sellable just by looking at who is pictured with it. Halliwell and Dittmar continue in their study to say that “studies demonstrate that the physical attractiveness of a model in an advertisement increases consumers’ positive attitudes toward the product, their willingness to purchase, and actual purchase” (Halliwell). The beauty norms are now becoming a consumers goal which causes customers to purchase something that they want to become, and by purchasing that product they believe their goal will be achieved.
Just like almost everything else in America, the application of Photoshop and the people who are using it to make a living must abide by laws and regulations as well. As retouching photos became more popular, regulators started creating laws to take action on the unrealistic depictions that were being made. Newspapers and magazines hold different rules but each professional organization in one industry have similar laws and regulations to each other. Newspapers hold different rules than magazines because they communicate information about current events taking place in our world. For example, the New York Times newspaper states that “No people or objects may be added, rearranged, reversed, distorted or removed from a scene (except for the recognized practice of cropping to omit extraneous outer portions)” (Consumers). Similar, the Los Angeles Times law states “We do not add color, create photomontages, remove objects or flop images” (Consumers). The rules are stated differently but are similar in meaning. As for magazines, the information being shown are advertisements and entertainment news, usually on a specific subject. Magazines are different in many ways, one being that there are not many laws for photo manipulation on them. For example, when flipping through a magazine or just even looking at the cover you can tell in most cases which of the photos were altered and which were not. In most cases the cover was, but some of the images inside were not. Given that magazines are for entertainment and advertisement, the images being shown are edited for that reason. Altered images are everywhere, but consumers mainly recognize them in magazines rather than newspapers.
Photo manipulation on people not only affects the image that is being retouched, but also the person that is the one being manipulated in the photo. Even though almost everyone gets photoshopped in todays media, the women and young girls are the ones who are more affected by it. The female readers see these powerful woman in todays society and take notice of how they look. They see the slender body, the perfectly straight hair, and the beautiful smile, which in their minds means flawless. When flipping through the advertisement or magazine and seeing these images, they realize that they want to become that perfect person. The results of that altered image redefines what beauty is, and considers it ‘normal’. As more and more photos become altered, the definition of beauty and its standards keep changing, which causes problems for a young girl who is just about to feel comfortable in her body and a woman who already has low self esteem. These photoshop ‘bodies’ are advertising to readers of being real and factual. As these false realities are being conveyed through various forms of media, young girls and women start developing unhealthy habits that begin to define ‘healthy’ and ‘normal’ differently.
An unhealthy habit is a “patterned behavior regarding as detrimental to one’s physical or mental health, which is often linked to a lack of self-control” (Unhealthy). These behaviors are affecting peoples image of what a ‘healthy’ body should look like. Bodies come in all different shapes and sizes, some looking better than others. Even though one body looks different than another, the health of a person could be the same. Everyday young and older woman compare their bodies to someone else, usually someone who is shown on a magazine, and if they do not compare they automatically shame them-self. In an article by Rachel Hoel from the University of Wisconsin, called “Photoshop and Airbrushing are Distorting Body Image”, she says that “Photoshopped models cause people to set unrealistic expectations about themselves” which in todays society has become true (Hoel). The idea of ‘healthy’ all of a sudden seems harmful, and magazines are the ones to blame for it. Hoel continues to write that “The editors of fashion magazines expose impressionable teenagers to the idea that being sickly thin is one of the few ways that you will be viewed as beautiful within society” (Hoel). Young women, especially between the ages of 12-15, look up to these models shown in these fashion magazines and tell their parents and or them-self that they want to be just like so and so. These young woman want the power they hold, the happiness they show, and most importantly the perfect physique they ‘wear’. Powerful women such as former first lady Michelle Obama, promote a healthy way of living to young women around the world, by influencing them to exercise and eat healthy. But “the message that is being sent is unclear and contradictory: an American leader promotes healthy living while more than hundreds of fashion magazines are publishing people who look undernourished and unhealthy” Hoel continues writing in her article (Hoel). While the messages are unclear and contradicting, so are the minds of the young women following them, which causes disorders and unhealthy habits of self shaming to surface.
When someone constantly self shames them-self they develop a disorder of depression and or anxiety. These people believe that they are not worth it, and they should not be allowed to live, leading to many suicides. As advertisers continue manipulating these photos, the people who are being altered are not only being affected but also the audience these advertisers are pertaining too. Girls today already have a hard time with their self esteem, and the exposure to media just makes it worse. In a article by Emily Roberts called “Self-Esteem in Girls: The Media’s Role”, she states that “80% of adult women polled said images of women on TV and in movies, magazines, and ads make them feel insecure about appearance” (Roberts). In addition to low self-esteem, photo manipulation also develops depression, anxiety, and eating disorders. Eating disorders emerge from women looking at advertisements that claim to be the ideal body shape. According to Emily Roberts study “42% of 1st-3rd grade girls want to be thinner” and “81% of 10 year-old girls are afraid of being fat” (Roberts). These young girls should be worrying about other things, like what they have to do for homework, instead of stressing about the way they look. When eating disorders kick in, most likely anxiety and depression will too. As woman stress about their body image, not only will they develop disorders like depression or anorexia, but will also cause them to develop more major disorders like high or low blood pressure and psychological disorders, creating more problems then they currently need.
In magazines, specifically fashion, digital photo manipulation has been known to edit the model to make his or her eyes pop, his or her teeth whiter, or make a body part slimmer. Even though it is an art or a job of someone, the consequences that can emerge from it become serious. When someone becomes photo manipulated they take a second to evaluate their choices in life, in most cases it is about what they are consuming. Models begin to self shame and make choices that they feel are ‘healthy’, but are not. Choices like under eating and over doing their exercises just to look thinner, but the reality is they are hurting not only their body but their mind as well. In the journal of Mass Media Ethics, a study done by Shiela Reaves for the University of Wisconsin, she found a statement from K. Harrison from the journal of The Relationship Between Media Consumption and Eating Disorders stating “the drive for thin-ness, and its consequent behavioral effects, has been linked to consumption of magazines and, in particular, fashion magazines” (Reaves). Women are seeing these fake images and are comparing themselves to them to motivate them-self to look just like the models being photographed. But the readers “who are vulnerable to eating disorders are internalizing digital fakery: They are trying to achieve a body that has been termed a ‘digital mirage’” (Reaves). These vulnerable readers cannot help but to be persuaded by these images because in their mind they believe this is what ‘normal’ looks like , this is how your suppose to look in order to feel happy. Even though almost everything they see has been played around with to look that way. All of those feelings are psychological, and it is people with psychological disorders who are the ones ‘consuming’ it all in. Psychological disorders are serious, but when the media, like photo retouching, gets involved the disorders can become deadly.
Once Photoshop and photo editing became more popular the trust that readers have for advertising companies who are said to be showing a ‘real’ images is slim to none. Many readers today automatically assume that the images they see in magazines and newspapers are fake. Once advertisers began to show their audience fake images, the audience began to be accustomed to it, and just passed it as normal. In an analysis by James F. O’Brien called Exposing Photo Manipulation with Inconsistent Reflections, he informs his readers from another analysis done by K. Wade called A Picture is Worth a Thousand Lies that “studies have shown that doctored photographs can alter our own memories of actual events” (O’Brien). The altered images that are seen through media affects people who were not at the events because they see one image and automatically assume that is what actually happened. As more advertisers promote images that are being retouched, the more their audience does not believe them. These altered images not only cause lack of trust, but also cause people to buy into unrealistic ideas. For example, if an advertiser is promoting a bathing suit that is suppose to make you look ten pounds thinner, and the model they have promoting it is already thin, people are going to question why that model needs to look ten pounds thinner. To add, the consumer might compare images of what that model looks like with and without the bathing suit on and realize they do look thinner. Most likely the consumer will buy it, and most likely will see no results. When they go back to that picture of the model looking thinner with the bathing suit on questions of photo manipulation will ponder. Consumers will realize the fakery and now will question everything in the future before they go ahead and purchase it. Today, photo manipulation has become so sophisticated that it becomes very hard to distinguish a fake photo from an actual one. But even though it is hard, social media makes it easy to see the real photo from the fake ones.
The act of photo manipulation across various means of media promotes self shaming and unhealthy habits for women and female teenagers. Photo editing, specifically distorting ones body, affects more women than it does men in todays society. Women, who are more vulnerable than men, become more self-conscious about their bodies and start to adapt to bad habits like eating disorders to make them-self feel better. Trust in advertising companies begin to lack, and people start to see every image as manipulated. Has photo editing gone to far? Or can we put an end to it? Starting now, everyone, including women, need to accept their flaws and not only look at manipulated photos or advertisements as a goal or someone they want to become just because they appear to be happy and thin. What readers should do is look at those images and be thankful it is not them. Readers should be happy with their life because they only get one. As for the photo editors, retouching images to color correct or fix something that is sticking out is one thing, but making someone look thinner then they already are is another. Photo manipulation challenges people to love the way they look, creating problems for someone that should not be worrying about looks.