Image Manipulation - Has it gone to far?
After viewing the Dove movie in class, read the article on Image Alteration, from CBS Sunday morning and respond to the two questions below by typing a paragraph for each one.
1. After watching the ad created by Dove and learning more of the features of Adobe Photoshop and how to alter photographs, how do you feel about many of the images that you see in magazines? What messages are the advertising agencies and companies who pay to run these ads trying to send? How does it affect you as an individual, as a teenager, as a society?
2. Based on the article from CBS Sunday morning, what did you think of the photo of Senator John Kerry with Jane Fonda as it was used in the presidential campaign- how does this affect us?
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1. I think that it is okay to change a photo as much as you want but then don't say that it isn't modified some way. it depends on the ad but with the models they are saying that this is what looks good and you should strive for this except that it isn't physically possible to look like that without just being born like that. I don't know how much the ads affect me the companies are just trying to get me to buy there product instead of the other guys
ReplyDelete2. I just don't like the fact that they said it was real and not altered in any way. that is when it goes over the line for me because that is just plain lying.
1.Watching the Dove video was not surprising to me at all. Its been known that all pictures in magazines have been photoshopped. Even pictures of food, or objects, have been touched up. I touch up my photos all the time. If you have the tools, why not?!
ReplyDelete2. It is sad that paparazzi have to photoshop people into photos when they don't have a story, but then again paparazzi are sad people anyway. The part of the story about Matt Mahurin was kind of funny. He doesnt make models look perfect and skinny, he makes himself look like famous people. That would be a fun job, especially because people all over the world get to see them on the cover of a magazine.
1. I think I always knew that most of what you see in magazine ads were highly edited. I mean obviously I didn't believe a woman was really swimming in a giant bottle of clinique or anything of that sort. I think beauty in the media is a very fake thing and that there standards of beauty are very high. Yet with a few pounds of make up and a few clicks of a mouse anyone can achieve beauty as its portrayed in magazine ad. The only thing is there are no clicks of a mouse that will make you completely flawless in real life, which is what seems to be the problem. People have set there standards of what beauty is so high, and the media has caused some of that. We see their version of beauty everywhere. I think that knowing that there beauty is fake has a lot of power though, if everyone could see what goes into making a model beautiful it would change there views. Then maybe we could go back to seeing it is the flaws we try so hard to edit out of photos is what makes us truly beautiful.
ReplyDelete2. I think photo manipulation has really just become another way to lie. We've been taught to believe what see but in this new age nothing is really what it seems. A photo is worth a million words but what happens when that photo is used to hurt or frame someone? I think doctored photos can be harmful. You could easily edit a photo and place a person at a murder scene, or a committing a crime. Its to bad that people really do use photoshop or photo manipulation to hurt people. It would be nice if we lived in a world where we didn't have to second guess everything we see.
1. I feel our society deals with many issues especially with our teens. Thoughts go through their heads of ugliness and not fitting in. What has happened to the responsibility of the the media? To manipulate a photo to the point that is is humanly impossible to appear the way they do. I recently saw on the morning news of a photographer who took a picture of a girl and did not photoshop the image. Her belly was hanging over. Society loved this shot. They questioned if this would be a new wave of photography. Lets see the person as she really is.
ReplyDelete2. To hear what this guy does to his photos is an out right lie. Has photoshop stumped our creativity and ability to take actual photos? I can see doing a couple of modifications just to enhance the photo taken but to completely manipulate the picture from a falsehood is wrong. It tells me these photographers have no talent in taking photos. It proves how low magazines will go to have a great picture. Hey, the guy on Spiderman 3 got fired for photoshoping an image of Spiderman. I think we need to reassess our values.
Images in magazines make me feel plain. They are trying to sell a product, status, and/or life style with an image of beauty. To me the cheapen the idea of beauty. 'If you do this then you will look/ be beautiful.' I don't read or look at magazines very often so these improved images don't really affect me. Being an artist I think that I have a different view on what I believe is beautiful. To me beauty isn't a physical characteristic it is an expression. It is not achieved by exterior means but, comes from an inner reflection of emotion. Everyone is beautiful, but we are not beautiful 24/7.
ReplyDeleteThe article with Jane Fonda losing a few pounds is okay and not okay at the same time. If I could remove a couple of pounds from an audience of millions I would consider it.. But it also sends a message that she should lose weight and that it is okay to portray a false image. This could go on to many other trains of thought including; what else is the campaign trying to hide?.. etc..
In reality the photo editor was probably just trying to improve the image. I don't think it was right especially given the context of how the image was being used.
1.
ReplyDeleteI'm glad that Dove is showing ads that depict what really happens behind the scenes with models. If this is what is done with a models photo, it makes a person skeptical of what other things are being manipulated. It creates a distrusts in the consumer. More coverage regarding the manipulation of these models should be exposed so that young teenagers can realize that these are pictures are not real and will stop trying to reach an unattainable goal to look like them.
1. I see nothing wrong with Photoshopping an image, in fact, I don't even think it is that new of an idea. Not all paintings and sculptures captured every little wrinkle and bad feature of a person. Paintings and sculptures of royalty and such were even made to make them look slightly better, the same as we do with Photshop today. I think magazines and ad agencies are just trying to sell their products. Its just business. I don't think anyone would buy makeup if the ads showed people with blemishes and bad skin. Shoes or clothes if they didn't look good in the ad. Hair dye if the ads showed people that still had gray hair. It's great that companies like Dove are trying to promote natural beauty but it works for their market. Not all companies can do that.
ReplyDeleteIt is pretty much a common knowledge now that ads are Photshopped. It doesn't affect society, and yes even teenagers, as much as people think. If someone has confidence or self-esteem issues it's probably closer linked to the people around them then some ad they saw.
2. While I feel it is fine to Photoshop an image for an ad but using Photoshop to lie about a news story or some celebrity or anything of that nature is wrong. With ads we expect them to be Photoshopped but we need to be able to have some trust in our news.
Answer to question #2.
ReplyDeleteThis photo is very deceptive. It creates a huge distrust in society. As for it being used for a political campaign creates an even greater distrust in any political party than there already was. If there is an audacity to photoshop for deception for a political campaign, imagine what else goes on beind the curtain that is misleading America.
1. We have all been decieved by what is beautiful. i remember there was a time when a women could be big boned and she was seen to be more beautiful than a woman who was skinny. the whole fact that many people are drawn to things that are not real has influenced our views on beauty. what the companies are saying without maybe even knowing it is inorder for someone to be beautiful they have to be fake. so many people can try their hardest to try to be "beautiful" in this world of so many unrealistic views on how something is beautiful that they can end up hurting themselves in ways that could scar them forever.
ReplyDelete2. Oh man, this article. what to say that isn't obivious? our politics have become like the politics in high school. fake. so many people put on a face that everyone will like, or should i say the ones that matter. the whole fact that Kerry was willing to let this take place just shows you that we have men in office not because they want to help our country become a better place, they just want the attention that comes along with it and they are willing to decieve anyone to get it.
1: From a personal stand point, before knowing all the things you could do with photoshop, I thought pictures in magazines were nice. The girls in them were gorgeous...for the most part and honestly I thought it was mostly real. From a designer point of view, that would be working in this type of industry, I can understand that they may not like it, and maybe they do, but sadly it doesn't really matter because it's what sells. Advertising agencies, in my opinion, are just doing their jobs given to them from the companies trying to sell their products...whatever it may be. So are ad. agencies to blame and is what they do wrong? Honestly I think that both are in the wrong and both are in the right... This doesn't affect me greatly... well, maybe in a moral stand point. I'm not prefect but I'm beautiful and wouldn't trade anything to be like a typical "magazine girl." I see it like this... if a model who's already pretty how she is, needs to be corrected in photoshop, she's really not all that pretty. I played with my photo for this class and it was cool, but at the same time it was ugly to me because it wasn't me. For teenagers, especially girls, need to be told and these things and realize what reality really is. As a society... our society sucks, personal opinion. We're so based on whats on the outside and not the inside and thats why we have so many problems! Plastic surgery, cosmetic surgery, eating disorders, being "fixed" by a computer...really...it not all that important!
ReplyDelete2:Again, back to the fact that our society really does suck. I don't really have a comment on how it affects us but rather how it should affect us. This should make us more aware of what can be done and not to fall for everything that comes across. Do the research and educate yourself so you can't be fooled!
I find it amusing that 600 years after the Renaissance started, here we are progressing back to the idealized portraits.
ReplyDeleteI think parents should be responsible for teaching their kids that advertisements are not to be trusted, and their main purpose is to sell you a product.
As for the Kerry/Fonda Photoshop:
My parent's always told me: "Not everything you see on the TV is real" and I apply that to things I find on the internet. You just need to do some basic fact checking (or somebody has already done it for you).
Plus I think the photo's like that should fall under defamation laws; the creator was actively trying to harm Kerry's reputation.
In any way, people *should* be smarter about what they see, but as P.T. Barum said" There's a sucker born every minute".
1: personally, i believe that using photo manipulation to sell products is okay. you're not selling the person advertising the product, so why wouldn't you make it look as nice as possible? it has become quite sad when it borders into false advertising with things like weight loss supplements and other "computer enhanced" ads. at least they label the obvious. when i was a teenager, i knew that most things in magazines had been enhanced in one way or another. whether it was the colors that appeared to be technicolor, or the fact that every single woman had the same chin in an issue of Vogue. the advertising world runs on an idealized society.
ReplyDelete2: it is pretty sad when a major news network resorts to photos that appear to have been made by the same people that sold the enquirer stories about "elvis coming back as a martian that made crop circles in the newly found atlantis." i think that since news is such a heavily realistic subject, photo manipulation has no place in the campaign process. this is an example of creating lies to sell people, instead of a product.
As an individual, it really doesn't affect me. I've always been someone who shrugged off peer pressure and even had a "food is your friend" shirt in high school. As for teenagers, especially the younger ones, Its a little concerning. With the pressure in society to be thin and the peer pressure to fit in, its not good in that sense.
ReplyDeleteThat just makes me mad. When you are reporting something, everything needs to be real. This has gone too far.
I knew most pictures were touched up in some way which doesn't bother me. The magazines never said that they were not altered. They are just touching up a photo to make it more visually pleasing, its like altering a landscape or anything else. Same concept different subject. It really doesn't effect me if magazines try to pass there models off as perfection, I decide my own standard of beauty not a magazine.
ReplyDeleteAs for the CNN report on the photos that were retouched and attempted to be passed off as real photos, I think that crosses a line, especially if it is to slander someone. Just goes to show that you cant always trust a picture anymore.
ReplyDelete1. After having read the CNN report I have to say my view on magazine photos and such has not changed. I was already aware of the manipulation of photos for advertising purposes. Having already known this, I don't feel that it has had any real effect on me as a person. I can look at these photographs and appreciate the work that went into it (and appreciate the finished work) and still have a detachment from any pre-concieved notion of how people are SUPPOSE to look.
ReplyDelete2. Using photoshop for newspapers and articles dealing with politics, world events, etc. is a very tricky thing. If the program is used there must be a fine line that the photographer must walk. Using the program to say clean up any excess blood shown in a disaster area so that it is general public viewing appropriate is one thing. Using the program to place people in places they weren't, or erasing people from places they were is more manipulative to the viewing audience and is/can be morally wrong.