Retoucher Claims 100% Of Fashion Images Are Fake

 

We know all too well that Photoshop is an integral part of fashion imagery. I have a good friend who makes the brushes of Photoshop seem like magic wands. She can turn any shot into perfection and does so for many retailers and magazines, which I won't name here. I will say, however, that having seen her work, I was not surprised to read a piece posted on Buzzfeed by a professional retoucher, who also chose not to be named.

According to him/her, a huge part of the job is body distortion, such as trimming waists, slimming legs, and smoothing out bones, and in his/her opinion, 100% of the images we see in magazines are retouched. This is not just for editorials either, ads in particular are guilty of transforming models' bodies and faces to help enhance their products.

Bodies aren't even the majority of his/her work—for the most part it's skin that gets an overhaul with the removal of wrinkles, hair, blemishes, freckles, moles, and veins as commonplace. Another regular occurrence is swapping heads and bodies, especially when there is more than one model in a shot. If three girls are photographed and 2 of the 3 look great, then the third might have another snapshot superimposed to match the other two. This would be from the same photo shoot, of course, only a different frame, so whether that's cheating or not is up to you. It'll be retouched beyond that regardless.

The reason for this person's disclosure is that he/she is coming out in support of the SPARK campaign to end retouching. It's an interesting stance to take, given that he/she could be out of work as a result, but he/she feels as though it's an art form intended to make images look cleaner - without bra straps or bumps in ponytails - not to distort images and create depression in young women as now known to do. 

I can't decide if this confirmation of a 100% retouching rate is a sad sign of the times, or the greatest news of all time, proving more conclusively than ever that we've been fighting to uphold an impossible standard of beauty. In an effort to be positive, I'm going to stick with the latter, and encourage you all to relax the next time your curly hair doesn't bounce just so, or you wake up to - dum, dum, dum - a pimple on your face. Because perfection? It's impossible, ladies.

Have your say! Are you surprised by the retoucher's claim that 100% of images in magazines are Photoshopped?