Anti Photoshop Research Paper

“The average American is exposed to over three-thousand ads every single day, and will spend two years of his or her life watching television commercials” (Kilbourne). Everyday people are exposed to billboards, television commercials, influential mall kiosks, and magazine images that portray beautiful, flawless, perfect women selling a product. The women in these advertisements have had their hair, makeup, and even their body profile altered in order to look a certain way. That altered image is what Americans think beauty should be. Advertisement companies are continuously photoshopping women in their advertisements, giving a false idea of what women should look like; this is wrong and it needs to be banned in the United States.

Photoshop has many uses. It is used to design posters and create art. However, it has negative uses too. For example, manipulating images. Manipulation using Photoshop to alter model’s bodies in the media negatively impacts society by creating an image that imposes an unrealistic body standard and is the root cause of recent adolescent eating disorders. Peoples of all genders are impacted by the modification of model’s bodies. Whether it be one is not skinny enough or one does not have enough muscle, it generates a frequent belief that one’s body is not good enough.

Within the past few decades, technology has completely transformed. The height and talent of today’s technology has completely changed America and its views. Technology has completely changed and expanded over the past 20 years. Within the past decade a new form of editing technology was created, and that technology is Photoshop. Photoshop is a software used to alter images. In todays day and age, photoshop has become the norm. It is everywhere and it cannot be escaped. Photoshop is used on everything and everyone, and it is affecting us at an extremely negative rate. Due to the works of Photoshop being used on every single media platform, society has adapted to the perfection in photos that were altered by Photoshop. What the world sees when they look at a photoshopped picture is what a company views as perfection, and this image creates an unhealthy comparison between the viewer, the image, and those around them. With Photoshop, images are altered beyond recognition. The Photoshop software takes away any blemish and flaw, and it can make the model used in the photo unrealistically thin, and by this it creates an unachievable body image. When these images are viewed by society, they only see the photo, and they don’t see the hours and hours spent altering the image to actually make them appear this way. So, when society, especially young children and young adults, see these insanely altered images they see something that isn’t real. They see someone that isn’t realistic,

Photoshop, is almost always used in today’s media but many people refuse to see or believe it. The more photoshop the media uses the lower the self esteem, higher the depressions rates and an increase in eating disorders and mental illnesses. So why does the media still use photoshop when it is so harmful? How does it really affect girls and teenagers? What can prevent these effects of Photoshop? Photoshop has harmed high school girls to the point where 30% of them have an eating disorder (Vaynshteyn).

By taking a different approach and using comedy and entertainment, Tina Fey has brought people together to understand the important topic of body image in a way people will listen. Body image for women has been a major issue in our world and there has been little change to stop it. “‘Why can’t we accept the human form as it is?’ screams no one. I don’t know why, but we never have. That’s why people wore corsets and neck stretchers and powdered wigs” (142). Everyone wants perfection. Everyone wants what they don’t have. No one is perfect. Everyone has flaws. If the world cannot accept this, people will continue resorting to modified images to produce this “ideal beauty.” One of Fey’s more interesting stories is when she talks about photoshop. Photoshop is a tool which contaminates how people see the human body. But this “perfect body” is intangible. Fey states that everyone is beautiful, and it takes a strong society to believe it. “Photoshop is just like makeup” Fey states, “when it’s done well it looks great, and when it’s overdone you look like a crazy asshole” (142). She relays on the idea that we are taking away the reality of our bodies when using photoshop. Fey’s attachment of a joke with the large and complex idea that photoshop dehumanizes a person is what keeps the reader captivated with the story and wanting to know more. Fey is able to reveal that a picture is an alteration of the true beauty of a person when put through photoshop. The reader is therefore able to assume, beyond all of her funny jokes, Fey

This brings me to the controversy surrounding enhanced photos and image editing software that erases flaws and allows for skin whitening. Therefore, the audience is cultivated from a young age to an unrealistic view of society.

Artists, editors and photographers plead the fact that they were provided with such great tools, but are constantly criticized for using them. Although there have been some very questionable fails in ads that deal with Photoshop, there have also been some very successful trials with Photoshop. Even though Victoria’s Secret models’ are retouched to have the ideal “beach bod”, they are also and inspiration for most people. According to Holmstrom in 2004, “results of studies done by both Crouch and Degelman (1998) and Biocca (1992) have shown that media increases positive body image, rather than a negative body image, in young women.” The exposure to these models’ beautiful bodies supposedly raises a positive body image amongst young women. Self esteem is raised because they aim to achieve the bodies portrayed to them in the media. Victoria’s Secret is obviously reaping benefits from this as well. Being one of the most famous lingerie stores in the United States and selling their bras from prices anywhere from $20-$258 (for one of their Designer Collection lingerie sets) along with the millions of women and teenage girls shopping at the store for the perfect fit that makes more self-confident, even if they’re the only one that ever sees their

According to Vaynshteyn, 78 percent of seventeen-year-old girls are “unhappy with their bodies” and 42 percent of girls in “grades 1 to 3” want to be thinner (2014). These shocking statistics prove that Photoshop damages lives in our generation while increasing the risk of depression and eating disorders. The media artificially illustrates women and transforms them into fake icons that many people look up to. For example, a woman who modeled for Ralph Lauren was a victim of “poor imaging and touch-ups” that eventually was found to be associated with Photoshop (Kite, 2014). Through Photoshop, entire appearances are modified and reality gradually has become less of the real

The usage of certain software programs that are used to alter the body in most magazines, producing unrealistic expectations to general public. Visit any magazine stand and all you see gracing the cover are thin, curvy women with flawless skin, Almost all of these women have been digitally altered to achieve the look that media has deemed as beautiful. In recent years, there

It is too common for women to compare themselves to images of models, actresses and singers they see in the media. Many of these images aren’t even real, media uses photoshop to make models look thinner and clearer. These images distort our perception of beauty, Photoshop makes models look unattainably perfect. The video Evolution was created in 2007 by the Dove self-esteem project, and highlights the untold story of the journey from real to retouched photos (The Evolution Video). This video illustrates just how lighting, makeup and digital manipulation distort our perceptions of women.

In chapter nine of Digital snaps: the new face of photography, titled Retouch Yourself: The pleasures and politics of digital cosmetic surgery, written by Tanya Sheehan, who is an associate professor and chair of the department of art at Colby College. She discusses the effect of the Photoshop look on society, and how with technology progressing it has become easier to create and have the perfect body look you have always wanted.

Beauty is America’s outlet of perfection for the average ego, an industry solely based on the prevailing taste of the age, packaging “beauty” as a product for its admirers. This magical bottle can be found on just about any shelf, from daily nutritious food items down the aisle, to the magazines that catch the eye on the way to check out. Digital photo editing has a lot to do with the reason why our society thinks this way. It has its upsides to it like increased product evaluation and therapeutic values, but it also has shown byproducts (that have either directly or indirectly led to things) such as false adverting, lower self-esteem, anorexia and even obesity.

Photoshop is everywhere, we see it on basic social medias like Instagram, Facebook etc. Photoshop can be very harmful to society that sets an unrealistically, high standard for beauty. Photoshop has created this mold of what a person should look like and if you don't fit into this mold society has created you're considered ugly, fat and a lesser person. Most models don't look anything like they do in real life in their photos causing them to be insecure as well as other when looking at an unrealistic standard of beauty. Still many people aren't aware of the extent that are brought on from photo-editing. Percentages of young women and men suffering from eating disorders and depression have increased tremendously.“Fix one thing, then another

Huge controversy if whether photoshop is serving any justice and if it should be permitted in magazines. Even though photoshop may make people look outstandingly attractive, it should not be allowed in magazines because it lowers the majority of people's self esteem, leads to various types of eating disorders, and makes the model look unrealistic.

A wise person once said “we never notice the beauty because we are too busy trying to create it”. With social media promoting the idea that a beautiful woman is flawless, it is hard for women to feel good about themselves. From a young age to late adulthood, women constantly struggle to look beautiful in our culture’s eyes. One of the biggest issues we face is the use of photoshop. Magazines and billboards edit their models so much that it hardly looks like the model when the editing is completed. It is time to teach girls that what they do for society is far greater than how they look to society. It is time to stop hating our flaws and start embracing them. It is time to promote natural beauty rather than dwell on the impossible task of attaining