From the subject's perspective, that's a no-brainer. As Postrel puts it, "except for professional models, photo subjects generally expect the wedding album standard to apply: Photos should look realistic, but as attractive as possible. Anything else, whatever artistic justification the photographer or editor may put forward, feels like an ambush. Nobody voluntarily agrees to an unappealing portrait."

Postrel makes the point that there is no such thing as one "reality": "Every portrait is inherently false: a static, two-dimensional representation of an ever-changing, three-dimensional face...Even without deliberate distortions, a still photo captures distractions that the mind edits out." To eliminate a distracting hair or bit of natural discoloration is actually to enhance the "trueness" of an image, since it's more like the impression one would receive from meeting a person in life. "Portraiture chooses one image at one moment to stand for the complexities of a personality and a life." As opposed to a plain old photo, a portrait in this sense is for the ages — a picture of a person rather than a person at a particular moment in time.

Okay, so we get why people want minimal touch-ups. I get why, too, in the wake of the Jill Greenberg fiasco, Republicans and those who love them are extra-touchy on the subject, especially when Palin's looks have been a major selling point. The real issue, of course, is that we're so used to perfection that we can't handle normalcy. We're used to the airbrushing of covers — we've come to expect that and some even like it — but it's only recently that we've needed to add it to our lives: Facebook and MySpace, of course, but also dating services and camera phones that have become a part of everyone's daily existence. We've talked plenty about how much we as a sex loathe being photographed, the neuroses and pressures that render the selection of a Facebook photo traumatic. This is not who I am!, you want to scream when a picture goes up without your consent.

But what, at the end of the day, is "perfection?" What for that matter is beauty? The most interesting element of the piece, for me, was the author's assertion that it's often animation — so appealing in real life — that can make someone appear "unphotogenic."

Candid shots are particularly perilous for people with animated faces, who illustrate their speech with bulging eyes or distorted mouths. In person, they look lively and entertaining. But, in between more flattering expressions, they produce a lot of strange shots. That’s why Hillary Clinton’s enemies have no trouble finding silly photos of her, while Barack Obama’s foes must make do with shots in which the candidate isn’t gazing glamorously upward. Obama’s cool countenance makes weird candid shots less common.

Mobility, life, is ironically the enemy of posterity — or maybe not ironically at all. Models are not valued for sparkling vivacity, but for the ability to conjure a slow-motion approximation of real emotion. What we perceive as 'beauty,' as perfection, is a face essentially devoid of expression.

This is not new; portraiture or daguerreotypes wouldn't exactly have been facilitated by an animated model. But it does seem strange that the same conventions — the idea of "best portrait" should still adhere to constraints imposed by the necessity of antiquated media. Perhaps it might be a stretch to suggest it, but it does seem like there's something pernicious in the equation of blank serenity with beauty. (And yes, I speak as someone whom the camera tends to catch 90% of the time in some awkward expression-transition.) We're told over and over, if somewhat disingenuously, that beauty is more than the physical — yet we're implicitly encouraged to reduce ourselves to a blank and "objective" composite of features for the school picture, the graduation portrait, the wedding announcement. The serene mask that means beauty is, when you think about it, a black canvas: the "mystery" of beauty is that we can project onto it — a face animated with expression and thought has already been inhabited and claimed by the wearer and is, perhaps, the less beautiful for it.

Which brings us back to those politicians and their portraits. What they want — need — is not so much perfection as blankness without distraction. They must be a reassuringly blank slate onto which people can project virtues and hopes and, most significantly, a bit of themselves. Because at the end of the day, however critical we might be of our realities, there's nothing in the world more appealing than the dream of our perfect selves.

The Politics Of The Retouched Headshot [The Atlantic]
Related: The Sarah Palin Non-Photoshop Chop: Fox News Wants To Alter Your Reality

The left wrist, the left knee, the right ankle! Bizarre!

Illustrated Britney on the left; un-Photoshopped Britney on the right.

She asks members who support her campaign to pledge to buy at least two copies of the magazine, if the objective is met. Writes Ondrey:

Everybody that joins this campaign fights the 'bad body image' hysteria sweeping the nation. Each person signed up commits to buying at least two copies of the first magazine that publishes an issue where at least the feature photo shoot and cover does not have any airbrushing. Why at least two? The issue would double in sales, making this campaign attractive to the publishers. You can give the extra copy to a friend who doesn’t know her own beauty. Spread the word that the standards for beauty we are not always what we see in the mainstream media.

Will a major magazine have the ovaries to do such a thing? Probably not. But it can't hurt to ask. It can't hurt to let it be known that the demand is there. That women around the world know they're being lied to and are sick of it. I joined — it only took a minute — and it will be interesting to monitor this campaign's progress.

Show Our Beauty: A Challenge to Women's Magazines [The Point]
Earlier: Here's Our Winner! 'Redbook' Shatters Our 'Faith' In Well, Not Publishing, But Maybe God

Some doctors in England are prescribing antidepressants for women who suffer from PMS (and show no depressed traits). • A play titled This Wide Night deals with the pain that some women go through when they are released from prison because of a lack of prison aftercare. • JC Penny launches an online RPG, Dork Dodge, to appeal to "fashion-conscious women" entering their first year of college by using real-life awkward moments of college life as a basis of the game. • Women athletes will make up 45% of the Olympic competitors in Beijing. • Disney rebrands Toon Disney into Disney XD, a channel that will appeal more to boys ages 6 to 14 by including more masculine gender stereotypes! • Robert Hazard, the musician who wrote Cyndi Lauper's 1983 hit, "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun", died today at the age of 59. • A small, unscientific survey has found that most women lie to avoid hurting someone's feeling, not necessarily to avoid getting out of trouble. * Young children (and women) in Afghanistan are being raped as the security situation of the country continues to deteriorate. • A female high school football player on a male-dominated team is suing her former coach who she claims made her practice without safety equipment (which her male peers had) resulting in getting her clavicle broken. • A 54-year-old grandma was arrested for child abuse after she took her 3-year-old granddaughter out for a joy ride (and "some air") by letting her sit on the roof of her car as she drove around.

[Image via Dlisted]

Let's focus on that plaid shirt. So fascinating how the sleeves are rumpled and soft and look like actual fabric, while the sides that are in the shape of her body are sharp and crisp.

What's up with the pocket not being extended into the zero in 600? Did they downsize her boobs?

Again, this pocket does not seem right. Also, the top of her sleeve looks like actual fabric. All along her sides, the lines are too sharp, too defined. Definitely whittled via Photoshop. Inside the magazine, Jessica is photographed in another plaid shirt; maybe this one was touched-up too, but her body just looks more natural.

Isn't the body on the right more believable? Why is it tucked inside? Why does the cover have to be a medical oddity?

Perhaps on the right she took her ribcage out temporarily, then popped it back in for the photo on the left?

The photo on the right is an unaltered photograph of Jessica out and about. There is not a damn thing wrong with the size of her waist or boobs. Thery're just not good enough for the cover of Elle. And guess what? She's been on the cover of Elle wearing a plaid shirt next to the words "Fall Fashion" before. The image on the right is from September 2004.

Anyway, if you're wondering why digitally altering a cover is such a big deal, you should probably read Anna's post about the Faith Hill Redbook cover. It's a terrible and dangerous thing. To quote Anna:

Deja Vu! [Perez Hilton]
Earlier: Faith Hill's 'Redbook' Photoshop Chop: Why We're Pissed

Oh, and in case you didn't know, Eddie Van Halen looks like this:

Here's Maxim Mexico's version:

And here's mine:

The yellow dress seems to be added. In fact, that may not be Lily's body at all.

This image has not been touched up in any way.

The truth is, we love a pretty image. And Vogue (and other magazines) render celebrities practically unrecognizable because they know that humans are attracted to a thing of beauty. (In fact, early covers of Vogue were literally art.) Even in the early days of photography, a photograph never told the whole truth: It was black and white. Then there's the context and baggage we bring to images. Did anyone ever see the London police ads that pictured a black guy running and a white police officer running behind him? In today's cultural context, it was easy to assume the cop was chasing the black guy. But copy at the bottom of the ad told the true story: Both men are police officers, chasing a suspect who was cropped out of the picture. The black guy was undercover.

Not only do photographs lie — captions and descriptions often lie as well. Joel Stein has a story today in the LA Times about the paparazzi in the City Of Angels. He notes how, when interviewing Jason Bateman, he and Jason stopped at a car wash. Stein writes: "As we were leaving, we spotted a guy hiding behind an SUV taking photos with a telephoto lens. Of Jason Bateman. At a car wash. The next day, a blog ran photos of us under the provocative headline, 'Guess Who Sneezed?' The sad thing is, he was actually blowing his nose." Sneezing, blowing your nose, who cares, right? The point is that we're living in a world where the truth is more blurred than ever, and we're used to it. And, Susannah Frankel says, we're guilty of it:

We may not, like Elizabeth Hurley, go to the trouble of using Photoshop to tidy up our holiday snaps. But which of us is not guilty of editing them, of casting aside the pictures showing extra chins, blotchy skin and wobbly bits? Of making sure that only the loveliest, happiest, glossiest versions of reality are left behind for posterity?

Pixel Perfect: Why You Shouldn't Believe Your Eyes When It Comes To Those Glossy Images [Independent]
Paparazzi Avoidance Behavior [LA Times]

Related: Vogue Covers [Cover Browser]
Earlier: French (Photo Retouchers) Don't Let Famous Women Get Fat
Here's Our Winner! 'Redbook' Shatters Our 'Faith' In Well, Not Publishing, But Maybe God

• "It's out of control. There's always a different boy and everyone is worried he's going to pull a Halston." That's an anonymous friend of Marc Jacobs on the increasingly-erratic fashion designer. [Page Six]
  
• Ouch: David Lauren was not invited to his girlfriend (of three years) Lauren Bush's cousin Jenna's wedding. You know, Jenna Bush: Daughter of the POTUS. Apparently the Bush clan think David is too old for Lauren. Oh, and also too Jewish? Awkward. [Rush & Molloy]
  
• Kristin Davis is pissed about the injustices she faced making the Sex and the City movie: "It's in the contract that we get to keep our outfits, which is a fantastic thing, except that, for me, all of my outfits were samples. I kept my running pants, which I love and wear them a lot, but I was like, Where are my clothes?" [E!]

• Blondes need not apply to model for the lookbook for Lindsay Lohan's new leggings line. [Perez Hilton]
• God is dead: Perez Hilton is getting his own clothing line. For Hot Topic. [Celebitchy]
• The New York Giants' Super Bowl Championship ring was designed by their defensive end Michael Strahan, who told jewelers at Tiffany's he wanted a "Ten-table ring": "When I walk into a restaurant, I want you to be able to see it from 10 tables away." Um, thanks but no. [WWD, 1st item]
• And what does Giorgio Armani think about paying the most in taxes in all of Italy? "I was on a beach when I heard that. I'm not concerned with it." [NYDaily News]
• Cindy Crawford: Regrets, she has some: ""I regret that I wasn't wilder," she says. "I was working and I was nervous. I was the one in the corner with the book, being responsible. I can be wild now. I'll sometimes dance on a table for my husband and his friends. But not naked - those days are gone." [Vogue UK]
• China's latest offense: The exportation of fake Nikes. [LATimes]
• Harper's Bazaar editor-in-chief Glenda Bailey says that her permanent plus one Steven Sumner says she was only awarded with an Officer of the British Empire award because, "I shop for Britain. He thinks OBE stands for 'Owns Bloody Everything.'" [WWD, 4th item]
• It's so hard to be Diane Kruger. Of the goings-on after the Met Costume Institute Gala, she says, "I went to that party at Phillipe, which was way too overcrowded, so I headed down to Bungalow, where I danced with Christian Louboutin. That was fun!" [Fashion Week Daily]
• Eva Mendes: Pics of her topless in Italian Vogue here. [Egotastic]
• Donatella Versace is still trying to tell anyone who will listen that her girl Hillary Clinton should wear a dress. [Page Six]
• Karl Lagerfeld's handbag and luggage line is inspired by...Karl Lagerfeld. [Vogue UK]
• Fergie's daughter Princess Beatrice is working at Selfridge's department store during her gap year between high school and uni. How pleb of her. [Telegraph]
• Hermes: Sales up 13.4%. Good for them? [WWD, sub req'd]

Many women are transformed by Dangin's computer stylus, which sits in a basement laboratory at "Box", his four-story, Manhattan Photoshop fortress: In addition to Drew, there is the trophy wife with the "flat" face and "short" legs; the shoulder blade found "in a recent project at W"; the cast of the Sopranos; Prada models; "a famous actress in her late twenties"; a "crunchy"-faced model; "another well known actress"; "an actress with a movie coming out this spring"; Kate Moss; models Liya Kebede and Raquel Zimmerman; Madonna. And then there is model Christy Turlington, who, Collins explains, "needs the least help".

Collins, interestingly (purposefully?) glosses over Dangin's flaws as adeptly as he reshapes a model's nasiolabial folds. Her interview subjects, she explains, liken him to "a translator, an interpreter, a conductor, a ballet dancer articulating choreographed steps". (She compares his work to that of painters Jasper Johns and John Currin; he is, she later explains solemnly, "savantlike".) Collins also seems almost resolutely disinterested in exploring Dangin's role in perpetuating unrealistic standards of beauty and when a photograph ceases to be a photograph and becomes, what Redbook editor Stacy Morrison once said, "an image": most of the critics and/or experts of photo manipulation Collins quotes are all long-dead; the only living people she does quote are all fans of Dangin; and she all but skips over the news that Dangin retouched Dove's "Campaign for Real Beauty" advertisements. And when she finally gets around to asking Dangin about the work he does and how it affects and defines those aforementioned standards of beauty, she follows his explanation — "I'm just giving the supply to the demand" — with a cynical parenthetical announcing, "fashion advertisements are not public-service announcements." (Yeah, tell that to Newsweek's Jessica Bennett, who put up this story on Friday, quoting a NYC stylist as saying "those young kids looking at the magazines, they're dreaming of something that doesn't exist.")

The work Dangin does, has, not surprisingly, made him very rich. (He owns homes in Manhattan, the Hamptons, and St. Bart's; in addition to the cover portrait of Barrymore, Dangin, with the help of favorite Photoshop tools as the smudge brush, the warping tool, and the clone stamp, retouched — or "tweaked" — 107 advertisements and 36 fashion photographs in the March 2008 issue of Vogue alone.) It has also, interestingly, made him somewhat of a god among the egotistical, easily-unimpressed bigwigs in the fashion and photography industries, who defer to his whims without a second thought. His list of clients is both impressive and iconic: Steven Meisel, Patrick Demarchelier; Annie Leibovitz ("Just by the fact that he works with you, you think you're good"); Inez and Vinoodh; Craig McDean, who says he gives Dangin "carte blanche" to basically do whatever he wants. Whether Dangin enjoys all the adulation and deference that comes his way, Collins does not make clear (nor does she explore the fact that from the photographers to the photo retouchers to the art directors, images of women in fashion magazines are manipulated and decided upon by men before they ever appear before a female fashion editor's eyes.) As for the things Dangin doesn't enjoy — on the women whose photographs he alters, that is — they include the following: ropy blue veins; bony temples; fleshy chins; bumps of all sorts; big knees; "slumpy" legs; bad pores. Oh, and of course, fat asses.

Several days later, Demarchelier returned to the studio to continue winnowing images for the show. The conversation turned to which shot to include of another well-known actress.

"I like her in this one, because she looks very natural," Dangin said.

"Yes," Demarchelier agreed. "In that other pose, she looks like an actress."

"But she's also very good here," Dangin said, of a shot that showed her partially nude.

"Yes, she's very beautiful in that position. Do you want to cut it?"

"No, no. I'm going to keep it for the ass," Dangin said.

"Maybe we could redo the ass."

"Yes, the ass is quite heavy."

Related: Picture Perfect [Newsweek]

Earlier: Photoshop of Horrors
Vogue Cover Girl Drew Barrymore Has Been Powerfully Photoshopped
Our Fifteenth Minute: That Faith Hill Photo Wasn't Actually A Photo, Redbook Editor Explains

When Stephanie Faucher, the design director of Computerworld, was questioned by Folio magazine about the infamous Lebron James image on the cover of Vogue, she answered with her own question: "What better way to sell magazines than to run a controversial cover?"

Except that Folio reports, controversial covers don't always increase sales. Though, writes Joanna Pettas, "It's nice to hear people outside the industry talking about magazines. It's a reminder that print, and magazines in general, still have an impact on social culture." Still, one has to wonder: If women are tired of airbrushed celebs and "perfect" models, and a magazine really wanted to court controversy, wouldn't it be a good idea to publish an untouched cover photograph? I'd buy that, in a heartbeat. Would you?

Liz Hurley Admits She Gets Her Bikini Pictures Airbrushed [Mirror]
Liz Hurley Confesses Love Of Airbrushing [Telegraph]
Why Ridiculous Covers Matter [Folio]
Despite Talk of Ethics Codes, Airbrushing Is Here to Stay [AdAge]
Related: Cover Critique: Vogue's Lebron and Gisele
Earlier: America Ferrera's 'Glamour' Treatment, Revisited
Is Vogue's "LeBron Kong" Cover Offensive?
Mainstream Media Outlets Have Picked Up On The Controversial "LeBron Kong" Vogue Cover

From the Blender cover where Britney's head was attached, Frankenstein-style, onto another body, to poor Faith Hill — readers are misled. Constantly. Take the new Marie Claire: We all know that Tina Fey has a prominent scar. So why can we barely see it?

As a reader pointed out, in this ad for Gossip Girl, Blake Lively's waist has been whittled down to the size of her neck. Screen shots from behind-the-scenes at the shoot prove how drastically she was chopped.

Some magazines in the UK claim that they're altering photographs to make models fatter. Well not fat, of course, just less emaciated. "It is now deemed just as negative to be too thin as too fat," says Belinda Coleman of retouching agency The Shoemakers Elves. "Every­one is scared of being highlighted as the magazine or label that promotes very thin girls, so they are being a lot more careful about the images they present." But this means that the model is still frightfully thin and getting paid. "Retouching skinny girls doesn't help anyone except advertisers, and least of all the models in question," writes Kate Finnigan, the style editor of Stella.

To be honest, when I think of a PhotoShop ban, what comes to mind is the scene in Batman where the news anchors can't use any makeup or cosmetics products because the Joker has tainted them all. The faces of the reporters are ashen, pale, craggy and uneven. It's shocking because we know what people on TV are supposed to look like: Smooth and perfect. Even if they're just reading the news. Magazines are the same; we're so used to the lies, the forgeries on the covers. How would we handle it if covers suddenly started revealing the truth? On the other hand, if magazines continue to lie and continue to have their lies exposed, are they fools for persisting? Are we fools for buying? Are the stars fools for aiding and abetting the lies?

ASME Plans To Address Photoshopping [Foilio]
Now Fashion Mags Make Models 'Fatter' [Telegraph]
Airbrushing Fears Under The Carpet [Telegraph]

Related: Britney Spears Blender Magazine March 2008 Cover [PopCrunch]
Tina Fey - "Marie Claire" May 2008 [JustJared]
Earlier: America Ferrera's 'Glamour' Treatment, Revisited
Vogue Cover Girl Drew Barrymore Has Been Powerfully Photoshopped
The Five Great Lies Of Women's Magazines
Here's Our Winner! 'Redbook' Shatters Our 'Faith' In Well, Not Publishing, But Maybe God

According to the Telegraph the forthcoming PhotoShop summits came on the same day that Professor Janet Treasure of the Institute of Psychiatry at King's College London said, "society's obsession with being slim was encouraging diet-binge cycles and bulimia." However, the question remains: is society's obsession with thinness so deeply ingrained at this point that digital manipulation or not, women will continue to torture themselves?

Magazines Face Curbs To Photo Airbrushing [Times of London]
Glossy Magazines Face Airbrush Ban [Telegraph]

Earlier: Here's Our Winner: Redbook Shatters Our Faith In, Well, Not Publishing, But Maybe God

Here's a closer view of the ad. That arm on the left is unsettling.

Want to see how KLS looked at her perfume launch?

Haha just kidding. That's not fair. (Image via Getty)
Here she is:

(Image via Getty)

Just for fun, here's the difference between advertising and real life:

[Image via INF.]

The thing about Clooney is that he knows how to play the game properly. "You don't say, I don't talk about my personal life," he explains. "People say they won't talk about their personal life. And then they do. And even when the tabloids say really crappy things and it pisses you off and you know it's not true, you have to at least publicly have a sense of humor about it." He's extremely passionate about his campaign to stop the genocide in Darfur: "I've been very depressed since I got back. I'm terrified that it isn't in any way helping. That bringing attention can cause more damage. You dig a well or build a health-care facility and they're a target for somebody," he says. "A lot more people know about Darfur, but absolutely nothing is different. Absolutely nothing." And yet, he can find a silver lining: "I have a U.N. passport. It says 'Messenger of Peace' on it. It's very cool," he says.

During his dinner with Stein, some sort of alarm goes off. Clooney proceeds to scour the house for the source, and even goes into Stein's dusty, musty crawlspace. (There's video!) He finds nothing, but then when the beeping starts again, he discovers it's the carbon monoxide detector in an outlet near the table. "Either it needs a battery," he says, "or we have six seconds to live."

And yet: Even this funny, charming, practically perfect star is not good enough for Hollywood's standards: behold how someone PhotoShopped the hell out of Clooney in the promotional shots for his upcoming film, Leatherheads. If George Clooney isn't good enough just the way he is, what is this world coming to?

George Clooney: The Last Movie Star [Time]
By George! Mr. Clooney Receives The Airbrush Touch [Daily Mail]

Note: I did this on my laptop. I have a little bit of a graphic design background, but I'm by no means a professional retoucher.

Earlier: American Apparel Will Make You Look Like A Fat Hooker
Here's Our Winner: Redbook Shatters Our Faith In, Well, Not God, But Maybe Publishing