A few reflections on Photoshop and its magic

Being a detail freak and sometimes an artist using some devices to enhance photos, the growing number of “photoshop gone bad” pictures cannot escape my notice. We are not perfect, it is a fact I do not deny, but for God’s sake – use it properly! Photoshop and similar programs can really help – when a pimple decides to spoil the cute shot, your eyes get the red devil pupils during a flash photo session, teeth are not as bright as in real life, a fly passes by and half of your sexy lips are smudged. These are good and necessary adjustments, to name just these few, so you know what I mean. But when someone decides to use it to literally put a mask on her/his face? The effect used by those “individuals” is called “skin softening” or similar, depending on the software used. Look at the example pictures of Wael Kfoury and Clive Owen before and after: 

Does it really look appealing to you? To me it does not! First of all, as you can see, it was completely unnecessary in these cases! Skin does not look like that! Look at your skin! Look at its structure! This is where beauty lies – in different structure! People created complicated 3D software to reflect this very same structure you are destroying with one click of your mouse! You are not a shop window mannequin! You are a human being! I just cannot stand looking at that kind of pictures any more. They literally hurt my eyes! Many fanpages use that kind of pictures. And not only them, they are everywhere including magazine covers!