I see friends of mine on television commercials and movies on a fairly regular basis and NEVER recognize them at first viewing, even when they’re in realistic make-up and have had no special hair style changes. The camera does not capture real life. And now less than ever.

I do have a problem, however, with changing something fundamental about a person’s appearance. If I were the photo editor, I would never remove a mole or wrinkles or alter someone’s figure. If the subject asked me to fix something I ordinarily would have left, I would (especially if they were the one paying me), but on my own I wouldn’t change anything outside of fixing the occasional blemish or photo gaff.

Also, I don’t think lightening the shot is inherently racist, usually it’s just about picture quality. In this case, I don’t agree with the editor’s decision to lighten it. I think the shadows bring out Diaz’s features and they disappear in the lightened version. She’s a uniquely beautiful woman, her features don’t necessarily fit the usual mold of “pretty,” and I think lightening it and de-emphasizing them does a disservice to her. I don’t think it was an attempt to make her “whiter” though. Photos get darkened all the time too. I can see wanting to make changes that would make her jeans pop away from the background (seriously, who photographs on a blue background when the model is wearing jeans? Duh?) but they could just as easily have done that by altering the background color instead of the levels of the whole photo.

That’s my Photoshop-loving-geek take on it.

If Diaz is a person of color, then everyone from south or east of Scandinavia is of color if we’re just talking about skin color.

In this story’s headline, a British actor is described as the “porkiest babe magnet in town.” However, the article doesn’t talk about his appearance at all (unless I read too quickly); it just lets the pictures do the talking. Note the freedom with which he’s dancing. When was the last time you saw a larger woman dancing with such freedom (and without being thoroughly dressed down in the accompanying article)?
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/showbiz/showbiznews.html?in_article_id=561439&in_page_id=1773

I think it’s actually a liberating concept to think that NO ONE can attain this superhuman standard of beauty, and to understand that ANY picture you are looking at may be altered.

Now if we can only teach the droolboys that …

this company has the exact same Cameron Diaz photo in their “portfolio” section as well as some other eye opening look at photoshop airbrushing. Sigh.