The question that comes to mind for me is whether this photoshopping phenomenon is worse or if the real problem is people who make physical changes in themselves. We have crash diets, eating disorders, and tv shows to tell you how to dress yourself and giving people "extreme makeovers." All of these things actually physically change the subject, whereas photoshop just manipulates some pixels. You also have to consider why people are turning to physical changes that make themselves fit the norms of beauty. Maybe it is spurred by these photographs. But dieting and feature alteration have been around much longer than photoshop. It makes you wonder if there really are problems that arose with photoshop-- or if these problems have been there all along.

Its interesting how technology seems to encourage a move away from authenticity and towards artifice. In this article technology is being used to manipulate photos and create artificial ideas of the human body. More countries should follow France's example in promoting images that have not been photoshopped. The U.S seems to be leading the charge towards unrealistic images of specifically the female body which causes severe problems in terms of women and girl's body image.

I believe there's a difference in airbrushing a photograph to make more even skin, get rid of blemishes, move hair up or down, etc. If this couldn't be done, tons of models would be out of a job because, as we know, no one's skin is always perfect and hair doesn't blow exactly the way we want it. However, the dove example is ridiculous. Lengthening someone's neck? Changing her bone structure? At this point do we even need models anymore or can we give the editors stock photos to change at will. I also wonder if they have to have the model/actress's permission to edit it. I think I recall Carrie Bradshaw getting upset when someone airbrushed out her mole and making them put it back in....what control, if any are you allowed to have over your own image?

Photoshopping models and actresses who already hold themselves to fairly unrealistic standards of beauty is so completely ridiculous to me. Its taking incredibly beautiful women and making them unrealistically and inhumanly beautiful. So many magazine covers have shaved away huge chunks of these women's waists, arms, and thighs, creating essentially impossible images of perfection.

Its no wonder that girls in this country have such huge problems with self-esteem and eating disorders when these are the models of beauty they are given.

Another huge issue I have with this is the retouching of the skin of African-American and Hispanic women to make them appear lighter or darker, depending on the context. A huge controversy arose when a make up ad last year had obviously retouched Beyonce and Eva Longoria's photos to make them appear extremely light-skinned, endorsing the idea the white is the ideal skin color.

This skin-color retouching is pretty obvious is these magazine covers:

One makes her lighter than she is, the other darker. Manipulating some one's skin tone in this way is just not acceptable to me.

Jezebel.com devotes a fair amount of time to deflating these unrealistic images of beauty. If you want to see some of the worst examples, click here:http://jezebel.com/tag/photoshop-of-horrors/

I would be interested to hear from the women whose photos are being retouched for the magazine covers. The article mentions that their publicists often require that wrinkles or blemishes are airbrushed over, but to me it seems like this would have some sort of psychological effect. The idea that you are so great as to deserve the cover of a magazine, only to have your picture be digitally altered, seems to imply that that person is not in fact great enough. Do the victims of photoshop not care that they are being misrepresented? Do they like it because it makes them look more attractive than they really are?

This is a very interesting and timely article-as our class explores the different ways "ordinary" people can get involved with an increasing amount of technology, this might be something that comes up. Personally, I don't think airbrushing should be completely outlawed. I agree with the article when it says that magazines can be a fantasy world, an escape from the everyday. But I do think that magazines should be required to note how and why they changed a photograph, and they should do so prominently, not just in the fine print on the last page. Airbrushing, in a way, is a kind of art, and if a photographer has a legitimate artistic reason for wanting to change something in a picture, I think that should be allowed.

On another note, reading the article I was interested to notice how much the web page looked like one of our media pages. The New York Times has managed to keep the article short, provide links to other sources and integrate multimedia in a way that doesn't, to me anyway, detract from the story.