Photoshopped ideas of "beauty" around the world

[Permalink]

2 Likes

Itā€™s a fascinating social experiment, just a shame there isnā€™t more variety in the end result. Iā€™d like to see the photochoppers take a little more latitude with skin tone, augmenting facial features, etc. Instead most of them opted for slight variations and a lot of make up. I lolā€™d at the US version. How ironic that in her home country she apparently needs the most dramatic makeover to be ā€œbeautifulā€.

Side note; isnā€™t she skewing the results by releasing some pictures before the whole project is complete?

2 Likes

One of them utterly erased the collar bones. Thatā€™s not a beauty standard. Thatā€™s just one individualā€™s awful retouching.

http://www.modelmayhem.com/po.php?thread_id=927172

4 Likes

She universally looks better to me in the ā€œbeforeā€ picture (and the least altered images), but I donā€™t know if that has more to do with beauty standards or just terrible photoshop skillsā€¦

Whatā€™s especially funny about that one is that they did the weirdest things to her face which just ends up making her look slightly deformed, if anything - they appear to have rotated her eyes (to be more cartoonish looking) and altered the relative distances between her features.

8 Likes

Of course, the beauty standards of a single guy in each country are not exactly representative. To me the real story is that at least some of the $5-a-pop retouchers actually put in some effort.

5 Likes

Bah, I just basically gave her a little bit of rest and some sunblock for her nose.

2 Likes

Sheā€™s beautiful with or without photoshop anyway.

Wow, those are some impressively bad photoshops. Perhaps I could persuade 40 individuals to recreate their unobtainable standards for beauty using a more organic medium: http://www.amazon.com/Mr-Potato-Head-27657-Playskool/dp/B005IBVLHW .

3 Likes

I think sheā€™s really beautiful in the before. I appreciate the artistry of transforming (like the space-alien eyes she got with the graphic designer from the US), but thatā€™s a separate question than ā€œmaking her beautifulā€. :slight_smile:

1 Like

Interesting. The first one that I found particularly attractive was the one from the UKā€¦ which (perhaps not co-incidentally) is where Iā€™m from.

Also Serbia (21), but I canā€™t explain that so easily. :smile:

vietnam had it bestā€¦ because it was closest to the original. you cannot improve on perfection

1 Like

SOOOOOO before, my god.

1 Like

It didnā€™t surprise me that the American one was the only one that altered her most idiosyncratic and integral characteristics; namely the pouty slant of her mouth and her eyes. By making her mouth smaller and symmetrical- and changing the very angle of her eyes- they stripped her of her personal character and likeness, making her another person altogether. Of all of the images, this is the one I find the most disturbing: They did not ā€˜make her beautifulā€™, they removed her entirely from the end result. It is very much in accordance with what we see in the US media: features are whittled until they all vaguely resemble each other; any significant diversion from the accepted base model is considered a deformity, a glitch, an error that needs fixing.

Most of the images (okay, except one Bengladeshi one where she looks like a grey alien) respect her likeness to some extent; they are guilty of very tacky makeup tastes and clumsy Photoshop skills, but they donā€™t destroy her personal, recognizable features and bone structure.They mostly just add fanciful colours and jewels.

1 Like

She really is a lovely girl. If what sheā€™s looking for is a change out - well, hereā€™s one. I snaked Emma Robertsā€™ hair etc. for this, so it is U.S. styling. Other than that, I dropped in her face, color matched to the existing photo, softened harsh shadows, gave the lips a bit of color, and a bit of liner for the eyes. The makeup is near transparent and is just there for shading.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/76260647@N06/14337373818/in/photostream/

3 Likes

Besides the before, the only one I really liked was Pakistan (11). Iā€™m pretty sure because of the eye-color. I really like the gold-ish or maybe red-brass eye color.

Yes, I know itā€™s totally unnatural, but hey, at least they didnā€™t rotate her eyes or redo her jaw or anything. Although they did try to cover up the dark eye rings, and tried to take out the dimple on the left side of her mouth.

Yes, quite - which I guess means that any change at all is more likely to diminish her beauty than increase it. Although I find that the worst photo re-touchers are the ones that feel the need to make the greatest changes to the subject - even when the subject isnā€™t so beautiful, it never seems to be an ā€œimprovement.ā€

Pretty much all of the ones that involved plenty of makeup reminded me of this:

http://theberry.com/2013/11/06/when-boyfriends-do-their-girlfriends-makeup-12-photos/

1 Like

Bangladeshi and US Photoshop guys, get your shit together.

2 Likes

I can play this game.

New and improved

6 Likes