How much Editing is too Much?

Samantha Skvarek

Photo by Photo Shop Lady

Technology is advancing every single day. It is amazing to see where we are at with technology. The children growing up are accustomed to technology. They are born into it so the use of technology and software is readily at their finger tips. With the era that we are currently in, photo manipulation is at an all-time high. With the advanced technology this is more software to allow people to manipulate photos. Photo manipulation is everywhere from the internet, to magazines, billboards, they list goes on. Photo manipulation can be a good thing, but it can also be a bad thing. If photographers are using software for a positive reason can be good. Photographers using software for a negative reason poses a problem especially to society.

Photographers can use software such as Photoshop and Adobe Lightroom to manipulate their photos. When it comes to portraits of family and friends, photographers’ use these programs to retouch the photos. Retouching can be anything from eliminating some backgrounds, adjusting a person’s blemishes, but what is it truly saying about today’s society. I think it can be acceptable as long it does not get out of hand. I would not want to get my wedding photos back and have awful spots, blemishes, and overall quality to be bad.

Photo manipulation is used in a negative way when it comes to advertising. The designers think what they are putting out is sparking peoples’ interest. The unfortunate thing being that they are setting a bad image. Specifically when we look at magazines, we see these actors, actresses, and models looking so fabulous. The thing is, they don’t actually look like that. Advertisers are manipulating the photos in order to make their product look better. The down side to this is that men, women and even children believe they should look that way. This accounts for unhealthy habits in people.

When we talk about the unhealthiness of photo manipulation, we have to explain it comes down to self-image. Teenagers are seeing these photos that have been altered. These teenagers believe they should look like the people in these photos. I can speak from experience that when I see a magazine specifically a fitness or health magazine, I find myself saying, “man I wish I had that abdomen.” It could be any feature, but then I think about it. Then I go on these healthy food diets or in the past fad diets that were not healthy. These teenagers should not have to see that.

I also think photo manipulation is a negative outreach for sports. There are times where an image is altered to prove a point. Whether it be a foul in basketball and altering where the ball is, even in football altering where the line of scrimmage was in a photo. It just simply looks bad on all parties. Most importantly it tries to prove a point on behalf of those leagues and in return makes them look like the officials cannot do their job. It’s a shame people have to manipulate photos to gain something, and not take everything for what it is.