Photo with 3 notes
Here we have a spread, the same model in both sections of it.
Those poor, poor arms. They’ve been reshaped and the end result makes the elbow look awkward, almost not even looking like a joint. They were both straightened, parts cut away, then a hint of curve was added so it would still have a hint of humanity to it. It has just that: a hint.
The attention given to the legs was less extreme. The mesh helps to slim the calves, which then flow into the lower leg and ankles. No cutting and airbrushing there, as was done with the arms, but the photo was resized to make it slimmer. The thighs have had work done. Portions were airbrushed off, which gives the knees a bit of an odd angle, but it is far less extreme than things I’ve seen done before. It still looks slightly unnatural, but falls short of the blades the elbows ended up being.
Another truly disturbing photo. Here they actually messed up with the editing, it’s something that I never expected to see in a published photo. I’m still not sure how that slipped past.
We have the usual edits on the face - wrinkles smoothed, blemishes removed entirely. No one has a face like this. You can see the airbrushing, it’s that perfect and smooth and not a bit of texture to it. Teeth and eyes were also whitened, though in this photo it’s within perfectly acceptable parameters, since they’re heavily in shadow. It won’t happen in real life, having them stand out as much as they do, but in an ad, the point is to have things pop. It may not be a glaring problem, but I wanted to call your attention to it so that you could begin to notice it in other cases, and judge what may or may not be realistic.
Legs were slimmed down considerably. You can notice it on this leg, the one that is lifted. Honestly, they’re nearly as slender as her arms. Work would have been done on the arms more, but she’s wearing a mesh blouse, which works to slim it down a bit anyway. The only work on the arms was when the photo as a whole was resized. It was made thinner, but kept the same height, which works to make the model look smaller as a whole. It’s subtle, I’ve done it myself in edits, and works wonderfully.
The painful thing I referred to in the beginning is the leg that is still on the ground.
The edges weren’t smoothed out before the ad was sent to the printers. You can see the jagged edge where they were blowing it away. It’s insanely easy to do - the clone tool selects an area of the photo you set it to, you click your mouse on the area you want to change, and poof. It’s painted over with the area you originally set. Grass is easy enough to fake, if you select small patches of it from another area.
I am not sure how this photo made it to being published, as it only looks half-finished with edits. Overall the editing is done well, but the legs ruin it by being far too thin, and only being halfway done!
Photo with 5 notes
I don’t think I can begin to express how much this photo disturbs me. Not just unsettles - disturbs.
The main focus of the photo is on the lines her body and hair make. The designer took serious liberties with the edges and overall silhouette made - it’s designed to be stark, black and white, high contrasts with softer gray pulling it together in the background.
It looks as her her breasts were simply painted on! They were certainly moved, or at least lifted to the extreme. You simply don’t have them going at angles like that when they’re placed that low on the body - they’re closer to the waist than the collarbone.
The torso itself was cut away at, the edges made straighter, more stark. The front of her stomach barely has a curve to it. Even for a woman in shape, muscles in the abs would curve out more than that. It’s as if someone tried to bend a plastic ruler, and gave it a teense of curve, as it comes out from under her rib cage - which makes far too sharp an angle.
Finally, we have the single worst thing in the entire photo: her legs. If you desire legs like this in real life, good luck finding a surgeon for it.
That is a knee you could cut yourself on. It’s almost a right angle, it’s that sharp. The legs were airbrushed away, and you see how the lines meet at the knees, and how much they cut away. Think of how a normal knee looks at that angle, how a person bends it like that. Compare it to the knee and thigh you see there. Now think of how much thigh they had to cut off to get the angle seen above. The top of the knee, the curve, is flat gone.
Overall, the model has gone over to the Uncanny Valley. The proportions no longer resemble a human’s.
Hoo boy. So many things wrong with this one I’m not sure where to start, so let’s work our way from the top. The face is heavily altered, for one - getting rid of any stray marks to make the skin smooth. This was also on the torso, and possibly the legs. Any stray scars or zits are just erased, copied over with clean skin. They also went heavily under her eyes.
The lighting is made to be dramatic, but that wasn’t enough on the arms. The arms have been cut away at. The shoulders especially show signs of this. They’re different shapes, for one thing. Different shapes entirely, and far too angular. The arms were slimmed down and given a new shape. Upper torso (above the waist) was altered - it’s far too straight a line coming out of the waist. I might be wrong, but it looks like a bit of muffin top was removed at the hips.
Same basic treatment I’ve been discussing, slimming down and straightening, was given to her legs. Nothing special or unusual there.
Lastly, a blur tool was applied to her arms, to make the necklace and boobs pop in comparison. There is no physical way that you could take a raw (unedited) photo and have her face, every strand of her hair, be in focus, and the arms would not be. They’re the same distance from the camera. You can see this easily if you look at the edges of her boobs - they stand out more because the background is fuzzier and not in focus. It gives them a cleaner, crisper look, which helps the general tone of the picture.
Also, yeah, it makes people stare at her boobs more. But I digress.
