No, this isn't about womanscaping and manscaping... I'm talking about making yourself look like you were cast in wax at
Mme. Tussauds.
A colleague recently received this link to
Portrait Professional, software that "has been 'trained' in human beauty."
The site also gives you access to a
before and after gallery that is intended to show how easy it is to make subjects more "beautiful". What it really does, for me, is open up a can of worms about what its developers thought was ugly.
Freckles are ugly:
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| Before: Real cute |
Strong features are ugly:
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| Before: Attitude |
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| After: Anime |
Children are ugly (or, perhaps, not sexy enough....):
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| Before: Sweet |
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| After: JonBenét |
And the "character"lines of age? Also ugly:
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| Before: No-nonsense |
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| After: Non-stick |
To be frank, the only possible way you can achieve an acceptable standard of beauty is if you get rid of your disgustingly flawed old body altogether and become a Japanese computer animation:
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| Before: Frank |
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| After: Fake |
I get it. People want to look more glamorous. But scrubbing their individual beauty away and making them candidates for
Photoshop Disasters is not helping in this image-obsessed world we've made.
Great post, Tom. In my personal opinion, these folks all looked better in the before picture. That's the thing about photo-shop, and plastic surgery and the like.. it really does set up a very unrealistic ideal to live up to.
ReplyDeleteIt makes me sad to know that I have friends who actually photoshop their own pictures to take out 'flaws' and such.
Sad.
How bad is it that they're even changing the shape of people's faces and eye color?
ReplyDeleteI am sure you have also seen this, as it is a few years old now. Jezebel was the first time I got a close look at before/after images, and was astounded at how much is edited.
ReplyDeletehttp://jezebel.com/5426296/photoshop-of-horrors-hall-of-shame-2000+2009/gallery/#
Thanks, Mandi. I had seen it.
ReplyDeleteAnd I agree with the Pickle Goddess. The befores are all better looking, and many of the afters are quite creepy.
There are more on the linked site.
sigh
ReplyDeleteThey all looked better before. Especially freckle-woman.
It makes me sad that some people think freckles are ugly :(
ReplyDeleteDon't feel bad, Sue. I get the distinct impression that the developers have only experienced women in digital form...
ReplyDeleteTo be stunningly beautiful, you have to look different than average. Some unfortunate people are born looking average, but most make themselves that way on purpose because they're too insecure to let themselves stand out. Go, freckles!
ReplyDelete