Photoshop affects us greatly (part 1)

Advertising, specifically for fashion and beauty products, has a huge impact on how people perceive themselves and how they think they look. Women’s magazines particularly have a remarkable influence on the body image. Various researches shows that adolescent girls depend on these magazines for information on fashion and beauty, putting so much value in the advice just as that of their friends. Along with the content, women’s images and now men’s bodies which are on the rise in magazines send messages to the people. There is evolvement towards thinner models in the advertisements and magazines.

Over two decades ago, an average model had a weight which was 8 percent smaller than that of average female; however, the modern day models’ body weight is 23 percent less. More disturbing is that even the severely thin models may not be seen as slim enough by the editors, who utilize Photoshop along with different image enhancing devices to generate women who are perceived as too slim to be true. These editors additionally change the celebrity photos to meet their standards. Men are not left behind: they are photoshopped to meet the lean and muscular standards. Extremely photoshopped images in the media and magazines have a lot of negative impacts on consumers.

Using too much photoshop creates a false impression on a picture. As photoshop is employed mostly in advertising that has a photo, consumers purchase things that they see on the ads and hope they are the same in real life. For example, burgers never look that good in real life, as one can see on burgers ads. Advertisers alter its color, make the cheese look more appetizing, set against a beautiful background and same applies to beauty products. Advertisements never portray products 100 percent accurately. This is considered false advertising. They are not giving the real picture, and consumers believe what they see on ads.

Photoshopped advertising affects how consumers perceive themselves and how they think about themselves. After seeing an ad featuring an enhanced product, customers assessed themselves less favorably than after viewing products which appear without the marketing context. However, the products that are solving problems, do not have the same effects i.e. with a product for pimples or acne advert, consumers do not view themselves less positively afterward unlike other beauty enhancing products.

Advertisements for beauty-enhancing products tend to make customers feel that their present beauty levels are not the same as they would be, customers often try to compare themselves to the photos in the ads although the ads may not include human models. In the real society, one has acne, another has freckles or crooked teeth. Despite them being beautiful, this can never be portrayed in the media. It is just the picture of perfection which is presented to these individuals who already a few shortcomings. Exposure to these products in ads lessened customers’ self-evaluation in the same way as the utilization of extremely thin, attractive models.