i’ve been shopped! …photoshopped!

my reps needed a headshot type photo of me to send around for different things. in the absence of any recent professional photos of me, Joey set out to edit one from my blog to look more “pro.” Joey is pretty good at Photoshop but he usually does website design and not re-touching on people, so he decided to experiment and see what he could do to the photo…

i usually edit my own photos for the blog by futzing with the colors or putting them through a filter and once in a while, removing an obvious zit, or a rogue cat hair. but i’ve never photoshopped any photos to the extend that they do in magazines. i don’t know how to! thus, it was fascinating to see Joey use the ‘liquify‘ tool and make my side-burns go away. he even narrowed my chin in one version (which they supposedly do all the time in pro re-touching) but it didn’t look like me anymore! i didn’t like the photo too cleaned up, and had him change some things back to the ‘flawed’ version, because i like my sideburns and the scar in my hairline and my big jaw!…call me crazy, but i looked like a creep without them!

this is the original photo, no editing at all.

this is me overly photoshopped with a thinner chin, no sideburns and my hairline scar removed.

and this is the one we decided on – my skin is smoother, no under-eye bags, my eyes are brighter but i still have my side-burns and scar. after a while, Joey started messing around with the liquify tool and this is what happened…

perrrfect! i’m ready for my cover shot!

but seriously, the whole Photoshopping phenomenon is rampant, as i’m sure many of you know – check out this great video on the subject. it’s really frustrating how much more women, than men, get photoshopped to unrealistic levels. but what’s really deceiving about re-touching, is that you never know what the original photo looked like! it’s hard to imagine that people aren’t actually that perfect, when you have nothing to compare to. i looked online for some before and after photoshopped celebrity pics, and it’s pretty shocking. there is one bare butt photo below, but that’s just because i was comforted at the sight of the original photo, since my own butt looks a lot more like the non-photoshopped one!…

what do you all think of this madness?

before and after photos via here.

photo-10
04/24
press

wait, it’s in the mall?
photo-13
07/03
style

rhinestones and hair grease
teaseteam_ore
03/10
style

team wilderness
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  • Chris Sayles

    what a great post! really interesting. I am fully aware photoshopping goes on (and admit I sometimes make ‘tweaks’ to myself for my posts) but it doesn’t stop me wishing I had the body of the models I see in mags. We’re all tricked into believing that those girls actually look like that when really they’ve been stretched, nipped and liquified beyond belief! 
    Lydia x

    http://www.treasuredress.blogspot.com

  • http://lilixoana.com/ Liliana Ferrer

    Great post, it’s insane how they photoshop us, but tha’ts how it will always be i guess. But atleast they have things like this over the internet to prove to girls especially young that everyone has flaws.

  • http://www.oneyoungthing.blogspot.com/ one young thing

    thanks for this post; the originals are sometimes really hard to remember.

  • http://about.me/allieharch Allie Harcharek

    I’ve been going back and forth between your three photos and I can’t see the scar at all in any of them. You look beautiful in all three, but the natural-looking one is definitely my favorite. Joey did a good job of showing restraint. 

  • Christine Jargick

    I love the one of Madonna. I knew it wasn’t possible that she could look as young as the photoshopped images make her look. It serves as a great reminder that these unrealistic images are just as (maybe more) harmful to mature women they are to teens and young women.

  • Laura

    I read somewhere that women feel depressed after flipping through a magazine and I believe it, I really have to remind myself that those pictures aren’t real and those women don’t look like that. It’s so important (especially for teenage girls) to make it clear that photos in magazines are fake and it’s not possible to look like that. It’s no surprise there are so many eating disorders and depression.
       I like the more natural looking photo of you as well the super photo shopped version looked so unnatural your such a beautiful women. 

    • mrkate

      Thank you so much! Thank you for your great comment and I totally agree with you about the magazines.
      xx

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=585687551 Monique Funk

    If your bare butt looks as good as the unedited one you are doing pretty darn good

  • Julie Paprika

    Its fantastic. Superstars DOES look like real people, or maybe, real people does look like superstars…