Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[theinevitable]

Steinmart's advertising utilises gigantic fake smiles which horrify me.

I personally like the things about people which make them unique. You know, the things that make them not the same as barbie dolls.

(I feel like I had posted something else to this effect before, but it is gone. Did it get deleted? Did I not post it? I apologize if I said something wrong, but I'd like to know what it was.)

the problem with liking people's unique features is that sometimes you compliment them on the very feature they dislike about themselves. Which makes them get all weirded out.

[pmcd9]

I think we're being played a little bit here.  I'm gonna say that these photos are photoshopped both ways.  The before photos are altered to make them look worse and the after photos are altered to make them look better.

[Alternate]

Hmm, I guess it's possible.  Those websites claim to be the portfolios of professional retouchers advertising their services -- although I can't verify that -- so it might be to their advantage to alter the before photos to make it seem like they affected bigger changes.  Or it could be that the websites are hoaxes designed to get people pissed off at the fashion industry, in which case it would also help their cause to cheat and make the difference seem bigger.  It seems to me, though, that photoshopping a picture to make it look "worse" -- drawing in hundreds of stray hairs, stippling the skin with realistic pores, painting in believable shadows, sculpting a curvy stomach over a flat one -- is probably much harder than changing it to make it "better" -- erasing the hairs, smoothing the pores and shadows, shaving off the curves.  I also think the pictures I see on the covers of magazines don't just display unusual body types, but they feature such intense colors and such uniform skin that I'm skeptical that it's possible to take a picture of a person and have it come out that way without digital enhancement.  I don't have any experience with photography or photoshopping, though, so maybe someone more knowledgable on those subjects can comment on this.  Recall, though, that my main issue with the photoshopping in those websites is that some of it takes people who look like interesting, potentially intelligent individuals, and makes their faces look relatively identical and lifeless.  I could believe they photoshopped bigger thighs into the before pictures if I saw evidence to that effect, but it's probably much harder to photoshop signs of life and individuality into someone's face than it is to remove them. 

[AugustWest]

This is an interesting video.

http://www.campaignforrealbeauty.com/home_films_evolution_v2.swf

[Drastic Action]

That was indeed interesting.

I still would prefer her as she was in the beginning, so the implication that that sort of thing has shifted my perceptions of beauty isn't correct.  She kinda looked a bit off at the end, like her proportions just did not make sense.  But I imagine there's a reason they go through that trouble, and that enough people would go for the latter look.

Perhaps I feel like I do because I don't watch TV and I am inherently skeptical of almost every ad, billboard, whatever, that I see.  It's kind of scary the secondary powers TV seems to have.  So nicely homogenizing.

[AugustWest]

I still would prefer her as she was in the beginning,

Me too.  I'm far more attracted to women who look like actual humans that I've encountered.