Digital Dr. - Brought to You By Adobe
Muna Shikaki reveals the secrets behind cover-girl perfection.
IT'S NO wonder women's magazines are criticzed
for projecting an unattainable beauty
standard. More and more, that Pygmalion
beauty is entirely carved out by computer.
Digital retouching of photos has now reached
the point where magazines not only alter
flawed pics, but also flawed chicks.Of course, it's still a hush-hush topic for most magazines. Editors are squeamish about confessing the extent to which they retouch photos. Cosmopolitan's parent company, Hearst, and many people at other magazines declined to talk about these practices, but they did refer us to some agencies that were happy to oblige.
"We completely distort people's faces," said Joe Girardi of Q Studios. "We'll move their nose, and we'll move their eyes further apart, fix the jaw line to make them symmetrical." Girardi says 70 to 80 percent of the work his studio does is on retouching women's pictures- some for women's magazines, but most "for men's magazines known for pretty women." Girardi said that one model, who was in a twelve-page magazine shoot, was so unrecognizable in the 'after' photos that "I wonder how she uses [the spread] for her portfolio."
Most retouching is not that drastic. More commonly, it involves clearing up blemishes, removing wrinkles and body and facial hair. It is also done to put a model "in proportion." "We might make her arms less skinny, less bony, move the collarbone," Girardi said. And, he added, "Contrary to popular [belief], we don't usually expand bust sizes. "
Glamour editor Cindi Leive said that the magazine did alter one model's figure to make her look fuller. She was "too thin," and the magazine had to modify the light and shadow so the model's bones wouldn't stick out. Magazines like Bust, which claims to be an alternative to women's publications that focus on perfection, retouch their photos, too. Bust editor Debbie Stoller said the magazine erases circles under eyes, and clears up blemishes and pores, but won't alter weight.
Jerid O'Connell, one of the owners of Fuel Digital, a retouching company based in New York, said part of the reason retouching is so popular is that the technology has become cheaper and more sophisticated. O'Connell, who has been in the retouching business for more than thirty years, said he remembers when the machines he used cost a quarter-million dollars. Before that, pictures were altered through a process of manual bleaching.
O'Connell believes people are migrating
toward a more natural look nowadays. "As the
generation gets older, there's a sense that we
don't want to look like teenagers." But, he
added, people still "like to look thin and
unwrinkled." And he expects to continue to
have plenty of business from magazines that
feel a need to improve on nature.