Airbrushing pictures is as common as applying make-up before stepping out of your home. Everyone from movie stars to college kids ensure that tiny flaws like pimples, stray strands of hair, dark circles, uneven skin tone and the odd bulge and wrinkle are erased out of their snaps before they are posted on social networking websites, preserved in albums or flaunted on magazine covers and billboards.
Nothing wrong in ensuring that you look your best, especially in a photograph that will last forever, but sometimes people go a bit crazy and do drastic stuff like making a dusky beauty like Freida Pinto sport a peaches and cream complexion for an advertisement. Give new mummy Mariah Carey washboard abs, make a model’s waist look unrealistically tiny and in Vogue Turkey’s case, erase the cover girl’s breast from the cover!
To “discourage the altering of photographs in a manner that could promote unrealistic expectations of appropriate body image,” Dr Farid professor of computer science and a digital forensics expert at Dartmouth and Eric Kee, a Ph.D. student in computer science at Dartmouth, reported in NYT, are advocating the use of a software tool which will measure on a scale of one to five how much the picture has been altered. They feel this rating should go as a “health warning” with all airbrushed pictures meant for magazine covers and advertorial purposes to let people know how genuine the images are. This they feel will prevent young women especially from having anxiety issues over how they look and help them get a realistic idea on body types discouraging eating disorders.
Are Dr Farid and Eric Kee over reacting or should we all exercise restraint while using photoshop? Kareena Kapoor modestly says, “I am decent looking and I know that, so I am not a fan of photographers airbrushing my photographs.”
But model Tinu Verghis feels there is no need to get so hyper about photoshopping. She argues, “Do we want the real bald headed Amitabh Bachchan to sell us a car or cement? No.” She further adds, “There is nothing 100 per cent truthful about any ad or photo in magazines. The professor wanting to prevent young women from having unrealistic expectations needs to get real. TV and fashion magazines should be nothing but time pass.” Tinu feels the only things that must come with heavy duty health warnings are cigarette and alcohol ad campaigns. Caroline Young, an international creative director and stylist too is not against airbrushing completely but feels restraint must be exercised. “I feel it is okay if it is enhancing a garment or smoothing a fold or crease etc. But photoshop should not be used to morph a body shape to skinny unhealthy proportions,” she says. While airbrushing will never be banished, the trend is to try and run with realistic images now as heavily airbrushed snaps are always ridiculed on the Net and the authenticity of the ad campaigns and covers come into question.