I have a couple of pretty interesting posts in the works, but I'm having some problems getting the thoughts in my head to translate into words. You know how that goes!
Now, back to the title. Does Photo shop scare anyone else? I mean, it's really cool to play with, and it can make a terrible photo of you somehow look good, but it just seems like EVERYTHING is photoshopped anymore! I was looking through an AVON catalog on my lunch break one day, and there is a page dedicated to a dark circle remover cream with "before" and "after" pictures. Great... but they are SOO OBVIOUSLY photoshopped! I mean, it looks like someone took the picture of an eye, photoshopped the real dark circle out, and then photoshopped a slight shadow under the eye. How in the world am I supposed to believe that this product works now? And it makes me so MAD because consumers aren't stupid! (well, some are, I'm sure, but I know most of us aren't, am I right girls?)
My point is this: if they can photoshop models in magazines, (and I'm sure EVERY SINGLE PICTURE in a magazine is doctored in some way)how is anyone supposed to know what is real? Any photo can be messed with. If someone is REALLY good at photoshop, it can look REALLY REAL! I'm not paranoid, honestly, but it's almost like losing trust in someone. If they lie to you once, how are you supposed to ever believe anything else that that person says?
I'm going to do something productive now. I'd love to hear your thoughts on this. Discuss!
3 comments:
It is scary! You can do ANYTHING with photoshop. I mean, I can't, but in theory. . .
you know, i never really thought about it, but i have to agree that it is kind of freaky & reality isn't really "real" when you look at print ads. good points!
ohhh and i tagged you in my blog :)
I'm not so sure that the advertisers are trying to LIE exactly. I think it has more to do with the idea that they can't clearly photograph the real effects of the product... and so the photoshop work is to give you an exaggerated idea of what their product is trying to do. Yes, we'll be honest with ourselves, some of it has to do with roping in the naive consumer...sure...but graphic designers get paid a lot to exaggerate the product demo in a more eye-catching way than just showing a real before and after photo, which wouldn't be that eye catching to the norm of the masses and wouldn't look good in the pages of a consumer magazine.
On the other hand, I saw a video on youtube of a guy using photoshop to make a picture of an absurdly fat woman, cottage cheese hanging out and everything, in her underwear look like a Victoria's Secret Model. So yeah... I guess that is kind of scary.
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