The Negative Impact the Media's Photoshop Use Has on Women.

Every single day, people in today's society are assaulted with images of flawless models and celebrities. Instead of being naturally beautiful, editors use photoshop to enhance their subjects. Photoshop was developed in 1987 to edit images. Thomas and John Knoll, the creators of Adobe Photoshop, essentially changed how images are created. Now, with the ability to composite photographs into an entirely new photo, anything is possible. While it is fascinating to have to ability to create new images, the use of photoshop in today's media leaves a lot to be desired.

This gif of photoshop in progress is a great example why people should not believe everything seen on the internet and in the media.

Companies know that sex sells, so their objective is to make the model as sexy as possible. But by trying to achieve ultimate sexiness, they end up altering a person’s image so drastically that it’s not realistic anymore. This creates unattainable beauty standards that hurt young women's self-esteem and drastically alter their body image.

A photo posted on Facebook by Chanel photoshopped to make a model appear as if she has an abnormally long neck.

Google defines body image as, "the subjective picture or mental image of one's own body." There are many different aspects in a person's life that can easily alter someone's body image. Family, friends and one's culture are just a few that have a strong influence. According to Planned Parenthood, "We also get messages about body image from television, magazines, films, and other media. Many of the beliefs we have about the way women and men “should” look come from the models and celebrities we see in the media. But models and celebrities do not look like most people. For example, on average, women who are models have very different builds. They weigh 23 percent less than women who are not models." Good examples of a form of media that affects the way women view themselves are tabloid magazines. Flipping to a random page in these magazines will usually be filled with candid celebrity pictures. Seems harmless enough at first, but majority of the content is nitpicking female celebrities appearances and pointing out their flaws. These women are viewed as disgusting because they don’t look like the heavily altered pictures society has grown accustomed to. Without someone to inform them otherwise, people assume that the women in adverts are what "real women" are supposed to look like. When in reality, there is nothing real about those photos at all.

A before and after photo of plus-size model Candice Huffine, illustrating the drastic changes photoshop makes.

The use of photoshop on the image pictured above is a perfect example of how the media misinforms the public on the female body. The model in that picture is a plus-size woman, so she is naturally curvy. After the photoshop manipulation, the model is still curvy but has a significantly smaller waste. Altering photos like this causes individuals to have certain misconceptions of the human body.

The heavily altered media images that are seen daily are what people think women should look like. With these unrealistic beauty standards set in place, how can any woman feel as if they're good enough? These feelings of inadequacy are common and dangerous if not dealt with. Dosomething.org states that, “75% of girls with low self-esteem reported engaging in negative activities like cutting, bullying, smoking, drinking, or disordered eating. This compares to 25% of girls with high self-esteem.” With such a negative impact on young women, many celebrities protest the use of photoshop. But that doesn't mean the public accepts the non-edited photos.

These unedited photos of Beyoncé from a 2013 L’Oréal ad campaign received so much backlash on a fan site that they were removed.

With media being such a huge part of everyone's lives, people grow accustomed to things looking a certain way. When a website dedicated to Beyoncé posted unaltered photos of Queen Bey, they received unexpected reactions. In the article "How 25 years of Photoshop changed the way we see reality" on the Washington Post, author Caitlin Dewey said, “The photos appeared on a fan site called Beyoncé World on Wednesday morning. Within an hour, Beyoncé World had pulled them down, apparently alarmed at fans’ genuine outrage. These fans were angry not that Beyoncé had been Photoshopped so dramatically — as is often the case with these things — but that someone had dared expose her for who she actually is. Laugh lines. Blemishes. Bits of friz. All the makings of a real, human person. The problem is that 25 years after Photoshop launched, we’d much prefer manipulations of reality to reality itself. ”

The media's use of photoshop has greatly affected the way women view themselves and how everyone views each other. Photoshop creates unattainable standards of beauty that hurt women's body image and self-esteem. It also causes people to prefer the edited versions of women to the real life version. Photoshop has invaded people's sense of beauty so much that unedited photos of women are considered ugly. It is time to put an end to this misconception. The images used by the media should not set the beauty standard because they do not represent a natural, average human being. Who can compete with an already gorgeous model that was photoshopped to look even more perfect? The answer is nobody. So women shouldn't waste any time comparing themselves to the impossible.