Don't know if anyone saw this article on Salon.com - it came out a couple of months ago - but I just happened across it and found it very interesting. More evidence of how rampant airbrushing is ... and gives some perspective to all those photos we are bombarded with and feel like we "should" look like.

http://open.salon.com/blog/travis_da...d_women_living

Cool link! Another reason why to chuck the magazines away and to stop aspiring to look like an unattainable image!

Kira

Wow I'm shocked that even Dove retouches their models...

WOW! Maybe we could all look like supermodels if we just had someone to touch up our pictures! I don't feel so bad about myself now. Bad thing is most of the before pics of theses celebs looked fine.

That article made me feel better in my own skin! To know that even celebrities have parts on them that 'need' airbrushed makes me feel like i'm not such a 'freak' of nature after all! lol

Seriously the Dove thing shocked me too!!

So many people refer to us women outside of Hollywood as "real" women. Those women in Hollywood are real women also. More than us, I do wonder how it REALLY affects the women it is actually happening to. No wonder some of these celebrities have eating disorders and surgery addictions, botox and such! I am sure a lot, much more than we can imagine, goes on behind the scenes.

I mean, I'm not sure how I would take it if the Dove campaign that was supposedly featuring REAL women came to me and said "we need to airbrush you, not to the point that you don't look your ageor yourself even, we're just going to take away the haggy-appearance".

The incentive (money) involved to do these covers must be a heck of a lot for them to go along with it. Most likely something in the contract that says the mag. reserves the right to take whatever "artistic" approach necessary to sell it.

Retouching photos, pasting heads, and you know all that food you see in those magazines that you go "OHHHHH" fake lol. Everything goes the route of "mashed potato ice cream" these days. It makes you wonder what we are really looking at sometimes.

This has always bugged me too. They're the same as us, just with a little more money and exposure!

I'm well aware that photos are retouched but that doesn't take away from the fact that these actresses and models are STILL in pretty phenomenal shape. As others have mentioned in the "before" pictures they still look hot, it's not like the airbrushers are taking off 50 lbs. it's probably more like 10.

To a certain extent, it's reasonable, just part of doing everything to produce a good picture. I mean, lighting is controlled for the same reason. Clothing is selected for the same reason. Hair and makeup are done for the same reason. Of course, it is ridiculously easy for popular media to take it way too far.

But I don't think it's an entirely black and white issue. I mean, isn't our daily makeup essentially the same thing as trying to airbrush ourselves? Or course, as an individual, we aren't putting enormous pressure on millions of other women to measure up to an ideal they can't hope to meet. But, I don't think the simple fact of using airbrushing or photoshopping is all wrong.

I wouldn't bet on that.. they'll make the bust bigger, waist smaller, thighs smaller, model taller, etc.. i've seen shows on this and it is truly amazing (good & bad) what they do to photographs... truly.

I was on the treadmill yesterday and an old, old aniston movie came on. she looked so different -- she's had her share of plastic surgery. her nose was much bigger, and I'd bet she's had other things done to her face. I mean, I almost didn't recognize her.

so you have nips and tucks, then airbrushing, then makeup, lighting, clothes (spanx), yep....reality is a relative thing!

If anyone has the last few issues of Shape handy, one of them has a section that is led into with the picture of a naked woman, contorted in a very strange way, holding her feet. When I first saw it, I spent several seconds staring, concerned about how unimaginably long her neck was. Then my husband pointed out that they had actually moved her shoulders downward to make her neck appear longer. GROTESQUE.