Tuesday, July 24, 2007

Sweet Jezebel!

Back in January, I wrote about the art of the retoucher, and now it's come up again, as Jezebel.com reports that "That Faith Hill Photo Wasn't Actually A Photo, 'Redbook' Editor Explains", as shown on NBC's Today show, that the untouched photo was uncovered by jezelbel.com. "Our goal in every cover is to create an incredibly beautiful image that people want to pick up, and peek inside" said Stacey Morrison, Editor in Chief. Morrison went on further to say what they did, in retouching Faith Hill so severely, was just industry standard.

Watching the video, you see that they thinned out her arm, her face, and her waist.

Of course it's industry standard...in fact, it's the industry's dirty little secret. This is why magazines will happily submit a list of photographers to celebrities who will then choose who will be the photographer for the cover assignment, and then, in turn, the celebrity requires they approve of the photo before it goes on the cover. Further, many celebrities require publications to use the "celebrity-approved" retoucher, who, of course, knows how to ensure that celebrity's flaws are minimized or eliminated. here's an example of massive retouching, to the point of "photo illustration" by an advertiser, and we're to expect that advertising is, in some small way, an acceptable arena for retouching. Who doesn't realize that 100% of the reason that a magazine has anything visual on the cover is to appeal to the newsstand buyer?!? The subscriber already has committed to the publication and paid for it. The cover is marketing and advertising for single-copy sales.


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3 comments:

Sean McCormack said...

Amy's work is astounding. I'm actually surprised that people think that the Faith Hill image is somehow the exception to the rule.

Unknown said...

If you go over to Stobist at http://strobist.blogspot.com/ under their video archive you will see 2 videos. One for Photoshopped Beauty and one for Photoshoped Ugly (parody. These are both very enjoyable to watch and we watch what appears to be a quick-frame live make-out session.

Niels Henriksen

Anonymous said...

You have to admit that Hill's arm looks pretty weird, though.

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