Should magazine retouched photo?

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Permalink Reply by Fred Faulkner on March 11, 2009 at 8:05pm

Retouching is one thing. Complete transformations or outright manufacturing of an image, as your link describes, is quite another. I'm not sure if there will ever be an agreed upon definition of where retouching stops and a new reality begins. Personally, unless a note is made about the change to a photo I'd prefer the retouching to be limited to lighting and contrast:)

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Permalink Reply by David Cardillo on March 12, 2009 at 12:24pm

I agree that there's a line, but it's a very fine line, and, unfortunately, no one can agree on where it's drawn (or if it's even drawn at all).

Consider the somewhat recent hulabaloo about the Faith Hill cover. (I'm too lazy at the moment to search for a link - Google it if you're unfamiliar with it.) There was the retouching of the arm. That was just bad photography, and they tried to fix it. A good photographer is aware of things like foreshortening, and the exaggerated perspective that can be caused by some lenses. Her arm had no business being out in front of her body like that.

But then, who at the magazine decided that a huge, seemingly disjointed elbow would be a good thing for the cover? I'm sure someone asked, "can we fix that?" To which someone replied, "sure we can." You've seen the results.

Her face, to me, is the bigger issue. But then, what did they do to Faith's face that they don't do to every fashion cover?

I can say, "they," because, frankly, "we" don't do that - certainly nowhere near to that extent. But to the public, all of us are "they." Are you a fact checker? An editorial assistant? Your magazine's crap, because "you people" retouch your covers.

Here's the ugly truth: *ALL* images are retouched - not just covers, but even the insignificant 1/2-inch-high product shots downloaded from the web. I know, because I go through all of them. Beyond adding contrast, shape, sharpening detail, there's also correcting for your press - dark reds tend to glow, and need to be mitigated in the proofing stage.

I've seen people get all bent out of shape about swapping heads on bodies. Not Oprah's nor Martha's heads on other people's bodies (again, look it up), but I'm talking about the same model, at the same shoot, in the same clothes - two different cuts from the same roll of film, where everything is the same but the pose, and then only slightly. Sure we do that - everyone does. We like the position of her arms here, but we like her smile here. Is that so wrong? Is that really a gross misrepresentation? Did we distort reality, fabricating something that didn't otherwise exist?

But, I think to the point of the question, what's the difference between airbrushing cleavage and raising eyebrows, and darkening OJ's face to make him appear more sinister? It's easy to say one is trying to create a (perhaps false) aesthetic ideal, the other is editorializing. Isn't the former editorializing as well? "We think you should look like this," this woman whom the majority of women don't come close to in appearance, who's had hours of professional makeup and lighting, who's had her clothes specially tailored to fit her, which have then been pinned and taped and clamped to fit better, who's then had hours of digital retouching done, "you should want to look like her."

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Permalink Reply by Fred Faulkner on March 12, 2009 at 10:21pm

I think part of this conversation needs to address what I feel is a change in perception from something like "the camera captures reality" to the digital reality that "is it Photoshopped?" Sure, even in the pre-digital days you could manipulate film, but it was orders of magnitude harder and you needed "equipment".
Now it's a free download of photo software and a few simple clicks. Ok, I'm slightly oversimplifying but I have seen a craftsman dodge and burn real film. No comparison to today's tools.
So is this really about expectations?? And have those expectations been degraded to "anything goes?"
I hope not. Which is why I hope those responsible for what gets printed will always themselves how far they are willing to stretch "reality."

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