Photoshop takes away the truthfulness of a photo
With selfies rising in popularity this past year so has the extent people take for them. People will do anything to get the right picture, which urges some to go for the editing route. Transforming an image at a click of a button through an app that ranges from full facial reconstruction to light edits/effects on pictures.
Photoshop is a way to edit photos online to create a retouched, altered version of the original image the any way.
One example is the app Facetune, which offers options to alter your skin, eyes, mouth, face and anything else to make you appear skinnier or to look younger with a press of a button. This doesn’t come free, for $3.99 in the app store you can achieve the “perfect face” for your next selfie or any picture.
Junior Hunter Dall-Winther said, “Some other apps people use are Facetune, Afterlight and Enlight to make themselves look better.”
The app Afterlight offers effects and adds lights/filters to pictures. It is a basic editing app like Instagram filters to add something on top of pictures you take to enhance color, and has tools to adjust light and other options. This app is sold in the app store for only $0.99.
This editing trend has become more popular due to the rise of Instagram and social media and having to have the perfect skin and perfect look to pictures.
Sophomore David Lientz said, “All these standards are everywhere, the youth look up to these famous people and want to look like them.”
You should want to be unique. Be yourself.
— David Lientz
This bombardment of social media is not only all around us but we are exposed to it everywhere we look. From celebrities to models, we are exposed to these ideals of beautiful and perfect in the media through professional touch-up, Photoshop, on pictures in ads, magazines and commercials.
Lientz added, “You should want to be unique. Be yourself.”
Users of Photoshop apps use them to feel better about themselves and the pictures they post for others and to look their best. From changing whiteness of teeth to enhancing your eyes to look bigger, these are all forms of Photoshop uses.
Junior Kaylie Goltz said, “People use these kind of apps to make themselves look better for others for social media by changing how your face or body look to others in a picture.”
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Some apps used create very obvious edits, while others are subtle changes that range from body distortion to moving your face.
Junior Jayger Eckles said, “Photoshopped pictures are noticeable sometimes when it is used too much for example when their features look abnormal and aren’t their own.”
If you are planning on editing your next photo Afterlight, Facetune or any other app out there are the perfect suggestions and places to start.
Lauren Feldkamp is a junior at Stillwater Area High School. She is an Online Editor for the Pony Express newspaper. She also participates in art club at...
Mary Burchill • Feb 17, 2016 at 10:13 am
The hook was a very honest, and interesting attention grabber that spikes reality into what ‘selfie game’ has become and how it so much defines people now. I like how you covered a range of apps and their prices and explained what each one had. I love the interviews you got because they supported the piece really well and were nice reminders that photoshop isn’t needed to like yourself.