Should Photoshop Retouching be Banned . . .

No. Do you want to see models, products, and advertisements as they REALLY are, imperfections and all? I didn't think so. :)

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Natobasso
dirtandrust.com
"Powerpoint is not a design application"

the damn filters!

Leaky Penny
www.leakypenny.com

“If you do what you love to do, then you won’t do it in an average way.”
~ Angela Bassett

Not much we can do about it other than educate young people and hope it could penetrate their mind in some way, so they don't try and achieve the impossible..

Btw this YouTube video is also interesting in terms of reality vs Photoshop :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pcFlxSlOKNI

And the other way around :D

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a-kZSpdv9Pk

I think banning would be too harsh, but certainly a requirement to say this image has been digitally enhanced is needed in areas where the image represents information rather than just decoration or entertainment. For example I don't give a damn whether a pop star is really the way he is on a photo, but when magazines retouch cover photos of real events I do feel cheated.

My wife had a class that discussed this at some point, they got to the subject of retouching news photos and whether or not that should be banned. I think retouching magazine covers and portraits are fine, almost even expected at this point. But if someone modifies an image that's being used with a news article there should be some restrictions. An image says a thousand words and editing that image can change those words.

Take this for example - http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/07/10/in-an-iranian-image-a-missile-too-many/

I agree with Ivan. If a photo is being used to sell a product, it should probably be noted in the fine print somewhere if it's been altered.

That said, people in this world would do better by far if they would simply educate themselves and their offspring on what's real and what's not instead of demanding Big Brother come in and ban this and restrict that.

Another good example of a way to distort the human idea of health: Look at body building competitions. Some in the industry would have viewers believe that the corded, bulging muscles and popping veins are the epitome of perfect health and physique. In reality, during the actual competition, these body builders are severely dehydrated (and in my humble opinion, being severely dehydrated ain't healthy). They take this measure in order to ensure high definition in their musculature for the competition. A look that is achieved without a digital camera or photoshop expert anywhere nearby.

Anywho... I think even when you look through historic ads of people, especially when most advertising was accomplished through illustration, you didn't see the illustrators drawing "average" looking people unless it was to suit the purpose of the product being sold. Take a look at some of those illustrations from the 50's and 60's - the women had pinched waists, perky chests and the men all had strong physiques and chiseled features. I wonder if people viewing the ads back then complained that the illustrators needed to draw more realistic people because it was warping their idea of what people are supposed to look like.

Haven't seen that video before. In this case it's just a bit sunspots and shape action. There's much more. The Dove video shows more of that.

Actually I think retouching is OK. Advertising is more like a dream and less like reality. Like we do it in our own mind with the past - everything gets a little bit nicer, don't it? But it is important to be aware that it is a dream.

And for me - I've done that retouching a lot, even on party photos i.e. when somebody has sweatpatches (btw. only seen in the flashlight of the camera).

But, yeah don't try to catch up with this images. ; )

With Photoshop, yes!
Photoshop is overhyped, artsy-community, bloated, me-too software with an unstable codebase and hefty hardware requirements! Stuff like this should be banned in general!

http://fakesteveballmer.blogspot.com

I never understood this issue. The retouching is not even a concern at all if you ask me. ALL printed material has gone through some sort of processing in Photoshop. If people don't realize that, then they aren't very bright at all.

Besides, the difference isn't THAT astounding. They may touch up blemishes and such, but there are people with perfectly smooth faces. It's not unrealistic at all.

The real problem here is absolutely positively NOT Photoshop retouching, but the fact that most of these models really ARE freakishly skinny, and to be a successful model you pretty much have to be that way.

My eldest son (grade 1) brought home his school photo proofs the other day. On the day that the shots were taken, his upper lip had had a slight blemish on it due to being chapped. I noticed that they offered retouching for a set fee so I asked him if he'd like that mark removed.

His answer to me was simple and bang on the money:
"It's only a small mark, Mommy, and if you change it, it won't be real. It won't be me."

If this is the outlook for future generations then perhaps there's hope for keeping things real.

"Without deviation from the norm, progress is not possible."
— Frank Zappa

no of course it shouldnt be. i mean some people are making a living out of it. most celebrities are not nearly as perfect as they pretend to be. and people reading magazines expect them to be perfect. personally i dont read magazines so i dont care what celebrities look like and if they are not as perfect as they look on the pictures. if you can sell something cheap for a lot of money-hell yeah! no banhammer!

No. I retouch my own pictures for freaks sake.

Everyone can cry me a river. You can't honestly want to BAN someone's idea of perfection. The Greeks and Romans sculpted what they thought were the ideal human form as an expression of beauty and nothing catastrophic came of it. Using photoshop for this is no different. If people value an airbrushed blemish-free existence, I say let them. All this ridiculous talk about "should we prevent this?" is just another filler subject created to keep bored soccer moms tuned in and watching until there's another school shooting or dead celebrity to talk about.

Honestly, it's just another example of how uniformly insecure our society is becoming. Should we regulate this? or should we ban that? Instead of creating a witch hunt out of every little issue why don't we just let it be and stop caring about what most people do with their lives?

I don't see retouching as wrong unless it's an event that's meant to be un colored by human hands (or a computer's 1's and 0's).

The Greeks and Romans helped us refine english to what it is today, so I see some "retouching" there too.

Back in the 70s and 80s they used "gauze"/soft focus lenses to hide imperfections, so it's not an altogether new thing; I for one am glad they did, especially during my acne-ridden teenaged years. :)

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Natobasso
dirtandrust.com
"Powerpoint is not a design application"

just like everythings else, as soon as you take something to an extreme, that's when it becomes a bad thing. Since there is no way to enforce such a ban it's pointless to argue about it.

almost every image IS retouched in some way, I do it all the time, sometimes even creating new images from several to make a new one that fits whatever I'm working on.

marketing IS fantasy, and there's no getting around it.