Ethics of Retouching

[jam1212]

I've been retouching photos for my family and friends for a while, and have recently gotten into doing it professionally. I hadn't really thought about the fact that some people could be offended by what I do.

However, a few nights ago, I had a friend over and was showing her what I do. She got extremely offended and said that I was adding to the social stereotype of false beauty and that I was helping to create unrealistic standards for women.

So, what do you think? Does fashion retouching add to the false stereotype that true beauty is perfection? Are we helping to create unrealistic standards for young women by making models in the magazines they read unattainably perfect?

Let me know what you all think.

(If this is in the wrong forum, feel free to move it. I wasn't sure)

[scorpioeddie]

Retouching has been going on since the days Playboy first came out. Now with Digital more people have access to photoshop and digital images. So it is more common. To me ..I have no problems with it. Keep the customer happy or your famil member.

[dataflow]

when you think about it woman do the same thing everyday when they put makeup on.

hiding the imperfections on the skin.
so for me retouching is just digital makeup

[BodegaGo]

i've been accused several times in social settings ("hey, so what do you do for a living?") of contributing to the eating disorders in pre-teen girls and masturbatory habits of boys

but then, once people get to know me, and maybe i show them some before and afters, the general response is "you know, it's good to know people REALLY don't look like that" and they say they feel better about themselves. the times i've gotten the indignant soap-boxy type lecture on morality in the media, i usually write those people off as self-righteous activists, and maybe i should find someone else to stand next to at the bar

obviously if i want to keep working i can't show everyone, but i DO tell everyone who asks the general tells, footprints, of how to know when something's been retouched i.e. "look at their armpits, no one has perfect armpits, where did all the folds go? that's a weird lookin inordinately smooth neck, have you ever seen a neck without folds before?"

on a similar note, i've recently been informed that it's illegal for models to wear fake eyelashes on set when modeling for eyelash product, as there was some sort of court ruling that this was false advertising. which strikes me as hilarious, cause all we do on those things is remove their ugly, clumped up eyelashes and draw in perfectly fake ones anyway

[madclark]

My personal philosophy is that someone should look no better or no worse than if it photo were taken under ideal circumstances and that the model was in perfect health and condition for their age.

[Dave.Cox]

Retouching a photo to show something in the best light, is no different that moving the camera to a better angle to show something in the best light, hide an un-wanted object, or whatever. It is also no different than telling a story, providing only the details that make the story most favorable to the point that you are attempting to make. It's all in the point of view, or perspective.

On another point of view, It really doesn't matter what you attempt to do, there is going to be someone, who doesn't like it. So the real question is, How does what you are doing lie with your own personal since of ethics?

Dave.

[Tom K]

In the same vein as Dave just mentioned I have to tell you that I was at one time involved in local politics and one thing became clear.. 25% of the people strongly supported me, 25% strongly opposed me and 50% of the people could care less. Do what you want to and try not to get sued...
Tom

[gi1976]

I agree with that girl. Being a female photographer I feel the same way about retouching. For this reason I prefer the photographs I take not to be retouched (or very minimal) in order to see a real beauty and not a fake one. I also think that real beauty hides in our imperfections, something that makes people look unique.

I found this article interesting and to the point
http://hubpages.com/hub/Retouched

"The danger is clear: these are the role models we have set up to emulate. This is what we agree that beauty should look like. The problem is, that standard is unattainable, even for those held up as examples"

[Jerryb]

hi,
These are my thoughts...
1. you don't set the standards!! your friends, relatives, business clients they set the standards! All your doing is doing a job that reflects what they want!

2. what can be done in photoshop is no different that what done in a photo studio.... make up is applied, special lighting and lens to get the desired results... I remember looking at my old HS yearbook and a lot of my girlfriends did not look like thier pictures.. smiling..

3. and what the public want, changes over time... if you look at what the standards were 100 years ago, 50 years ago and now you will see a significant change and currently there is a change going on now.... 5 years a ago model needed to be ultra thin and tall,,,, well that changing in fact in many countries the trend is that they need to be more full body !!

4. if your friend really want to change things... then she should tell your friends and teenage daughter not to buy the glamour/fashion magazines and let the magazine know!! you effect the $$$$ bottom line that gets a change...

those are my thoughts

Originally Posted by jam1212

I've been retouching photos for my family and friends for a while, and have recently gotten into doing it professionally. I hadn't really thought about the fact that some people could be offended by what I do.

However, a few nights ago, I had a friend over and was showing her what I do. She got extremely offended and said that I was adding to the social stereotype of false beauty and that I was helping to create unrealistic standards for women.

So, what do you think? Does fashion retouching add to the false stereotype that true beauty is perfection? Are we helping to create unrealistic standards for young women by making models in the magazines they read unattainably perfect?

Let me know what you all think.

(If this is in the wrong forum, feel free to move it. I wasn't sure)

[jam1212]

I appreciate all of your opinions. I guess I should say that I don't feel that there's anything wrong with retouching. I feel that I am supplying a product to a consumer and nothing more. Photography is a way of capturing whichever reality you want to capture. Retouching is simply taking that another step.

Anyways, keep the opinions coming!

[edgework]

Originally Posted by jam1212

I appreciate all of your opinions. I guess I should say that I don't feel that there's anything wrong with retouching. I feel that I am supplying a product to a consumer and nothing more. Photography is a way of capturing whichever reality you want to capture. Retouching is simply taking that another step.

Anyways, keep the opinions coming!

If politically correct dogma is something you feel compelled to worry about, don't do fashion/beauty retouching. Work on dogs. Or landscapes. Cars are safe, and no less complicated (oops, except for those pesky carbon footprints).

[jam1212]

Just to clarify again, I don't feel that retouching is unethical. I just thought this topic would spark some interesting discussion. Thanks again for everyone's opinions. Keep 'em coming!

[Nikolas]

Take a look at that famous painting my Leonardo Da Vinci, the Mona Lisa, and tell me that women was painted exactly as she looked: tell me that Da Vinci didn't 'enhance' her appearance. We as people of the human race want to look our best, whether it be for a night out on the town, or whether it be in a photograph with our friends, our physical appearance is important to us, and why shouldn't it be, after all, that is what makes us unique. Retouching a photograph is kind of like renovating your kitchen: you do it so that it looks visually appealing, and so that it serves the purpose that it is desired to serve.

Do I think that retouched photographs can lead to social issues in young girls and boys? Absolutely. There tends to be a lack of understanding that these pictures of women and men in magazines are no longer 'real' because of the amount of retouching that goes into the pictures. Each and every person is beautiful in their own unique way, and I think we as retouching artists need to be willing to promote this fact. If parents were to help their children understand this, then maybe there would be less problems blamed on this art. I don't blame anyone in specific, I blame a lack of understand.

[Dave.Cox]

It doesn't matter who you are, what you look like, boy or girl, what you do, or what your status in life is. You are always going to be compared to someone else, and that so called standard is often going to be unobtainable. That means you have to decide where you are comfortable, what what standards can you set for yourself. Is it something that you can improve? If so, and it's important to you, then you should strive to do so. If not, or it isn't important to you, then don't worry about it.

[KennyMc]

If images are sent to you for retouching then the client wants them retouching... If you don't do it, someone else will...

[jam1212]

Nikolas,

Excellent points. I feel that nicely sums up the real heart of the issue.

[Zepplinn]

My wife think I do not like her face. Yesterday I was cleaning a picture of my and her. I was cleaning spots and smoothing her skin, when she asked my this. In real life she sometimes complaining about the spots and the skin. I see nothing wrong by doing this. It is done in every magazine, movie poster, papers. Why can we not do this?

[Nikolas]

Hi Zepplinn

I don't think, by any means, that we can not retouch photographs. But when it is not in a professional environment, where a client has hired you to retouch a photograph, I think that you need to have respect for what the person in the photograph wishes to be done to their image. I don't know about the rest of the world, but here in Canada, the person owns the right to their own image, and has the right to deny persons the ability to change their image. Oh, and newspapers wouldn't ever be allowed to alter an image, just like a television news company wouldn't be able to alter an image beyond colour correction. It has to do with ethics of the press.

I would say that if your wife has asked you to not retouch her pictures, respect that. Also, maybe next time you could ask her if she minds you retouching her photographs. Perhaps ask her to sit with you as you retouch them, so that she has a say, and so that she can see the entire process. Who knows, she may like it too, and wish to take up a new hobby.

[AltIvan]

Woman use make up and as many things as they can to look beautyful, so is hipocrit to talk about "Ethics of Retouch". We just do wath they arent still able to do with cosmetics.

If images are sent to you for retouching then the client wants them retouching... If you don't do it, someone else will...

Hitmans thinks the same way.

[hillfan]

I do it for friends all the time...take off a chin, fix a blemish. I feel it is art work and everyone loves to have a great picture of themselves. anne ps. by me doing this for my daughter, it has taught her how the industry works in the land of models. How a picture is not always as it seems..

[Maroon]

I've always thought that camera film is unfair to models. Sure, it captures them accurately, in the sense that it is an exact copy of their appearance at one moment in time, but that's not how we normally look at them. When you see a pretty girl, you don't zoom in and scan her face for blotches and bumps--you wouldn't even be able to.

When we're face to face with someone we look mostly in their eyes, while just glancing at the other major parts of the face and probably focused more on them as a person than on their physical details, so we don't pick up small wrinkles and blemishes and our mind sort of smoothes out any characteristics that deviate from the norm; and it has often been said that pure normality is the definition of beauty. Retouching usually involves sharpening the eyes and removing distracting details so the end result is closer to how we would really see the model, sort of like how they say HDR is closer to how we would really see a scene because it takes into account our perception.

A raw, static image addresses only our analytical vision. Retouching is an attempt to add a bit of emotion.

[Mike]

This thread made me think of this:

http://demo.fb.se/e/girlpower/retouc...uch/index.html

If some customer wants all or part of this, we try to comply. I have not really thought of such acts as being unethical, to me the unethical retouching is what is done to the little girls in the pageant's.