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Retouching Images

Keana Barrow

Ottawa University

04/26/20
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Retouching Images

There are plenty of images out in the public eye that are not at all what they seem. A lot

of the pictures of celebrities in the media are not the originals. However, when they are originals,

the celebrities are talked about in a negative way, with people calling them ugly or having issues

on what they look like without being all glammed up. This has caused a lot of self-esteem issues

and has made society think they have to look and be a certain way in order to fit in.

Who it Effects

The image I picked meant a lot to me because it showed an older woman’s portrait,

unedited, next to what seems to be a much younger woman. However, these two images were of

the same woman. The photo was obviously edited and played with. Whether or not it was

published somewhere like a magazine, it’s still there on the Internet for everyone to see.

Not knowing the back story, it’s a little harder to really analyze what this picture was

really used for and how it may have effected society. I know from personal experience, looking

at images that are retouched and sent out to the public, it could make me feel pretty insecure

about the way I look because the images that are sent out to the public are just so “perfect.”

My mother always talks about how she is getting noticeably older and how she has

wrinkles everywhere all over her face and body. So, if she were to see these images side by side,

I think she would get her feelings hurt and she would feel a certain way about it. There are a lot

of people out there that would lose self-esteem if they saw an older woman look a lot younger

than they really are.

Retouching photos is a part of the industry and social media. Whether it be adding filters,

lightening up a photo, or completely changing the way one looks in the picture. When I am

shopping on fashion sites, I can never find clothes that I think would actually fit me because the
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women and models that are modeling the clothes have a completely different body type than I

do. In reality, no one around me looks like these girls on the website.

Not that long ago, models were idolized because of how skinny and petite they were.

Even though it’s still that way today, I think that for the most part, younger women want to have

that hour glass shape. The Kardashian family has had a huge role in modeling to everyone on

what a “good” body should look like. There was an interview with the youngest of the clan,

Kylie Jenner, and she said that she is under a lot of pressure to look a certain way and be a

certain way.

This really hit me because an outsider looking in, we see how happy she seems to be on

social media by the things that she posts, but in reality, she really might not be as happy as she

seems. We see a lot of celebrity suicides and substance abuse issues, and the public usually

doesn’t seem to understand why that is. A lot of it could be because of the pressure that they all

have every day to act and look a certain way for their audience and fans. Retouching images and

editing things to make it seem like something it’s not could be a big reason for this.

Conclusion

I think it is unethical for someone to retouch images in such a dramatic way that the

person doesn’t even look like themselves anymore. This probably makes the person in the photo

feel uncomfortable, and it makes society believe we need to look a certain way that isn’t normal.

There has been a lot of individuals (women especially) where this has caused issues with them

growing up and going through their lives.