(Music Playing)
Tim Lynch: Okay, so this basically mid, sort of knee cutting off the knee. (Camera Clicking) we do vertrap about 10 years now. We go around, probably 11 now but I think about it. It literary change my entire industry.
Every picture that gets put through like a Meg Ryan or Nicole Kidman, they have unstaff if you will or you know a free lancer, and they pay them very well to retouch every image that is release of them. So, that is the reality of it, they do not want to release anything that is not retouched.
Sarah: In the pursuit of perfection, I went on my very first Photoshop Photo shoot but, what is perfection?
After spending the past week researching the photo doctrine, tactics used by most if not all of magazine and TV type, the bigger question maybe, have we created an unattainable image of perfection? It is brightly accepted as the standard for beauty?
According to New Week Magazine, the retouching of photos has become so mainstream not only is it expected but demand it from publishers. Magazine Editors however do not feel that they are deceiving the reader because they assume that the readers know the images have been altered in one way or another. But, do the readers?
Alexis Beck: I do not think woman and girls know the extent to which photos are retouched, I do not. And even if they do know, I am not sure it penetrates.
Sarah: In your opinion, how many picture in the entire magazine do you think are actually retouched?
Tim Lynch: I would say 99.9 are retouched I would say. Maybe five years ago, it was not so much is it cost a lot of money or perhaps somebody said doing a production time? But now, it has to be. I mean, you cannot have blemishes and you know lines under eyes and you know wisdom lines and all that stuff. People just they diminished them, they get rid of sort off.
Sarah: Tim Lynch has been in the business since digital photography was first introduced. We asked him to manipulate my face and body so that I would look as if I was as perfect as a Hollywood Celebrity on the cover of a magazine.
Tim Lynch: I can make you eyes bigger, your lips bigger, anything you need to do. Elongate you neck, bigger bust, smaller bust. Thinner waist, thicker waist, whatever you want, whatever you want really, it is with within you know, within reason, I can do it.
(Music Playing)
Tim Lynch: We are going to make you a model today. That is what is going to happen.
Sarah: I am exited to have a photo that is photoshoped, but I also do not know if I want to see what I could, would look like 15 lbs later. Does it actually serve as what I could be or is it still unrealistic? I do not know.
Tim Lynch: Swing your body to me just a little bit more? Front, bring your front me. Bring front to me if this so as back shoulder around, just swing your body right around, just like that? Yap (Camera Clicking) very nice.
We have the shoot.
Sarah: Do you like the second one?
Tim Lynch: The second one? Yes, that is amazing. You are using a natural smile? That is the one I want.
I am just going to go ahead and start working and I am going to go pre hi-res here, do not be afraid, and I am just going to go in and sort of thicks the sun spots, just not coming back. Okay, so now, I am just put it back down to a 100 and we will turn it on and off to show -- see that?
Sarah: Wow!
Tim: Was that amazing?
Sarah: Yes.
Tim: And it takes, it is just sun spots we dealing with.
Sarah: Wow!
Tim: Is that amazing?
Sarah: I am so much prettier with Photoshop.
Tim: Well, I mean, it really takes like -- it takes I mean, I will exaggerate 10 years off of you.
Sarah: Yes.
Tim: You know, it makes you look like a teenager again.
Now, what I am going to do is I am going to drop you into a dialog box called liquefy, and this is where the magic happens in terms of warping pixels. And what I can do and I will just demonstrate how it works. I can use it and push pixels in,
Sarah: Wow.
Tim: Or I can take them away. So basically what I do is I am going to soften and then minimized volume basically what I am doing.
Sarah: I am speechless.
Tim: Yes, yes, yes, amazing ha? So, basically, when you are talking about the Hollywood types, they have a personal retoucher that does this all day long, and they pay them really well and one picture was released without their permission, and it just the way they want to be viewed by you know, to the world. They want to be you know, have this sort of perfection which is not possible. I mean –
Sarah: In recent months, readers have becomes in range of Photoshop images and as a result of backlash against digital retouching has emerged. How photo editors in deed gone too far. Are we risking our own health in letting the idea of perfection reach unattainable levels?
Tim: If you train full time as a pro athlete with trainers, and eat the way you suppose to eat, your body could probably get closed but who has time?
Sarah: Yes.
Tim: You know, so, I do it for you. (Continue conversing)
Sarah: Little did Tim know that my job at diet.com also required a vigorous workout schedule to keep up with the filming of exercise videos.
Alexis Beck: How does it feel to try to achieve the impossible out of control? So much of what we deal with anything disorders or disordered eating has to do with control to begin with. And so, if you cannot achieve what you are looking at, do not you feel out of control?
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