Search Style Sheets: Your Photos, Your Looks

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• noliah

  I can see softening the photo, smoothing the belly (after all, it’s a cover photo) and even the change to a pinkish hue makes sense, but messing with the shape of the right leg? Geez, RS, lighten up a little.

• Kathy Kitt

  She doesn’t even look real in the cover photo.

• http://twitter.com/rdlln Robert Dillon

  Another example of image manipulation in the media. #iimm

• funfere

  http://fashionkinetics.tumblr.com/post/3107930696

• Dave

  This is terrible photoshopping. The right leg looks distorted, the right hand looks floating, the right side underarm looks disfigured, the left underarm is distorted — what WERE they thinking? Back to school, geniuses.

• Jack

  It’s scary how they photoshopped her hands and remove the socks. wtf?!

• coffeenmorphine

  because she was hideous before?

• nooneisperfect

  What is really sad is that our teenage daughters see photos like this and others that are manipulated in photoshop and they have no clue it’s been done. They think there are women out there that are “perfect”, they aren’t going to see the “mistakes” others see. Then we wonder why so many girls have eating disorders and other psychological problems…..

• http://twitter.com/CestDerrode Derrode L. Rowe

  Oh come on! Thats ridiculous! Her body looks just as good without the editing.

• Anonymous

  This is EXTREMELY common retouching for fashion/beauty and advertising work. There is absolutely nothing special happening here. Katy Perry is a 27 year old who sings about high school. She is a product. I don’t think they did enough retouching. I still couldn’t pick her out of a lineup. Boring.

• Anonymous

  She sings a song called “teenage dream” in which she says… “put your hands on me, in my skin tight jeans, i’ll be your teenage dream tonight.” Katy Perry is 27. She isn’t the “teenage” part of the dream so we can only assume that “teenage” refers to the person putting their hands on her.

  She is basically singing about statutory rape as far as I can tell. She is a vapid, shallow, hollow, product that exists for no other purpose than to profit off the hive-mind stupidity of teenagers. But if they just wouldn’t make her boobs perkier this would all just go away right? Jesus get a clue.

  All research and development information suggests that the strongest influence on child’s self image, consciousness, and self esteem are their parents. So stop blaming the media. Real men and women take responsibility for themselves and don’t blame fictional accounts for their real life problems.

• Anonymous

  This entire website is dedicated to vanity and these people are on here complaining about retouching a model in an advertisement. The definition of irony has been sufficiently illustrated.

• TiffanyEyes

  Really though, Im 22 and almost everyone I know, wait scratch that, EVERYONE I know has something that bothers them about the way they look. Yes parents have the highest effect but not the only effect. Media is teaching our children to hide our differences and spots and the things that make us human. We shoudl be celebrating the human form for what it is, human. And Im pretty sure the teenage dream she is refering to is just that the man is making her feel like a teenager again…. if the media is making people feel insecure then yes there is a problem.

• katyfan

  u always looks beautiful katy for me….whatever what people say about u…u always beautiful….

• ohmboy

  I don’t agree with your framework at all. The media isn’t “making” anyone do anything. There is no law that you have to view, buy, or pay attention to any magazine, television, internet or media content. The legal precedents hold individuals responsible for their own behavior. You are choosing to view that content and you are choosing to base your values and self image on an advertisement in a magazine. No one is stopping you from doing otherwise.

  Rolling Stone has never claimed to maintain visual standards of accuracy like the AP or other news media (which Rolling Stone is not, it’s entertainment media). While parents can’t be responsible for everything their child sees or hears… they still have to take responsibility for the health, well-being, and personal success of their child. One of the most important aspects of this is dealing with, processing, and identifying reality.

  I totally understand the issue of the societal pressures of image and physique. I am not saying that there is not some substance to the argument that hyper-reality like this can be damaging. The reality however is that advertisements aren’t honest. They aren’t real. They are intended to make you feel inadequate unless you have what they are offering. Therefore, they will always reflect our inadequacies. Does that make them to blame for our inadequacies in the first place? I think not. That’s like blaming the mirror because you don’t like the way you look.

  I say let’s stop blaming everyone else and take responsibility for ourselves.

• Ph

  When you have an entire science devoted to deconstructing the human emotional/mental process in order to push goods and services…it’s called marketing..then yes there is some social responsibility in how the imagery is couched..and how it’s manipulated.

  This has nothing to do with personal responsibility.

  You’re also projecting your own ability to be immune to the messaging onto everyone else and then wagging your finger when they don’t see through it like you do. I know this, because I do the same thing and have to check myself from doing so from time to time. Marketing generally doesn’t work on me, same with advertising.

  That is not the case for the vast majority of consumers out there..and guess what? That’s who they’re going after.

• Scw

  I have to say that, as a teenager – and I haven’t been one for some time, I looked hard at the covers of magazines such as Vogue and Seventeen and was quite anxious about the fact that the women and girls had pore-less skin and very slender thighs. I coveted the look and felt quite insufficient in comparison. That’s a fact. The other fact is that, in reality, I had a perfectly nice looking face and body and I totally couldn’t see it that way. I don’t think Photoshop existed back in those ancient times, but magazines definitely retouched girls and women to within an inch of their lives. I stopped buying those magazines in my early twenties when I realized that they were making me feel bad about myself.

  I have an eight year old and though she is interested in fashion and enjoys fun clothes, sewing and designing, I don’t expose her to a lot of fashion magazine images. We don’t talk about or do diets, food and being active are associated w/ health, and the words F-A-T and skinny are not in our lexicon.(Unless we’re talking about our “big boned” kitty, Petal.) I admit, fashion photography wasn’t the sole cause of my poor self image – but I know it fed into my self image issues when I was younger in a big way.

• Ann

  Sure, self-esteem is built by parents in part. Be that as it may, as a girl in high school it was torture trying to appear the way women and girls do in magazines.

  Like the above poster said, I had no clue about the extent of photo-touching. You really wouldn’t know unless you’ve been a teenaged girl, how it is and what a waste it is.

• Thisperson

  Statutory rape? Are you kidding me. It like any couple that wants to feel young and in love again…its referencing more that than statutory rape. Media isnt all to blame, I agree with you on that, but unfortunately they still should have the responisbility of not falsifying things and not having to put some kind of disclaimer on it (This picture has been altered to satisfy sells*). Parents need to not take self image of their children so lightly, listen-watch-and educate your children.

• Anonymous

  Wow I didn’t care about this 4 months ago and I don’t care now. Just
  another excuse for people to whine and blame other people. It was supposed
  to be facetious, the part about statutory rape. Jesus what a waste of time.

• Anonymous

  Why do they have a responsibility to not falsify things? They have no legal
  or moral responsibility to do so. Its a corporation so they answer to their
  shareholders only, they are not journalists and don’t claim to represent
  reality, truth, or objectiveness… so how can u say they are responsible to
  tell what u deem the truth? Doesn’t mke any sense, doesn’t reflect US law.
  Get a clue.

• wuht

  The sources of these images have the greatest power (and hence responsibility) over how their images are consumed and interpreted. If a corporation is being considered to provide news on what is stylish and *achievable* by their consumers they should either live up to the expectation or dispense that thought from the minds of their consumers. Stating one thing in the legal fine print (which most ppl won’t be reading or search for) and pushing an opposite thought in the minds of their consumers through their mass media, is essentially deceit.

  What would have happened if the cigarette companies were give free hand to market cigarettes as a good thing!

• wuht

  The sources of these images have the greatest power (and hence responsibility) over how their images are consumed and interpreted. If a corporation is being considered to provide news on what is stylish and *achievable* by their consumers they should either live up to the expectation or dispense that thought from the minds of their consumers. Stating one thing in the legal fine print (which most ppl won’t be reading or search for) and pushing an opposite thought in the minds of their consumers through their mass media, is essentially deceit.

  What would have happened if the cigarette companies were give free hand to market cigarettes as a good thing!

• Anonymous

  They have a responsibility over how their images are consumed? You are
  literally saying they are responsible for how people individually perceive
  the images they produce as an entertainment publication? Obviously you have
  assigned values where they don’t belong and don’t place any emphasis on
  personal responsibility which is what US Laws are based on. You also seem
  to misunderstand the basic axioms of a free market.

  “If a corporation is being considered to provide news…” What does
  “considered” mean? That is a completely subjective and undefined term as
  are most of the words you used. It means nothing in reference to the legal
  reality or the societal constructs you are seemingly trying to discuss. A
  corporation has no legal or moral responsibility to do any of the things you
  said. You have offered a mash of false realities, personal opinions, and a
  complete lack of understanding of US law and corporate culture. Just
  because you personally think something, doesn’t make it true.

  I won’t even comment on the cigarette company thing because the comparison
  is not equivalent and therefore irrelevant.

  Blame is always a two-sided coin and Rolling Stone wouldn’t allow beauty
  retouching if beauty retouching didn’t sell magazines. It sells because
  that’s what people want to see and in a capitalist society those “wants” are
  represented in dollars. Rolling Stone is an editorial magazine, NOT NEWS,
  and if you really don’t know the difference, there is little use in
  discussing this further.

• ohmboy26

  Fair enough… I see the point you are making and don’t necessarily disagree… although..

  I don’t see where the “social responsibility” fits in. I agree that they SHOULD be socially responsible as individual humans but as a corporation, they aren’t legally obligated to do so and it is not one of their self stated values… so by what standard does marketing have to be socially responsible? The law says it has to be physically responsible for the effects of it’s product but there is no statutes for social responsibility in media conglomerates or public marketing. This is intentionally left to the free market.

  It has everything to do with personal responsibility. The free market is based on personal responsibility and while I agree that capitalism should be slightly restricted and some social responsibility should be legally demanded from national corporations… I also believe that it isn’t ok for people to make their ignorance more comfortable for themselves instead of making themselves less ignorant.

  I think this is illustrated by the fact that no one seems offended that a vapid, banal, self-centered, shallow dolt is idolized by the masses while everyone is offended that they made her boobs a little bigger. All anyone cares about is how she looks so how can you blame Rolling Stone for reflecting the one thing anyone cares about? It’s a pretty hypocritical stance to take (not you personally) to be a fan of or like Katy Perry but disagree with the retouching done to her.