Airbushes and Photoshop

It's clear to anybody now that over the last 10 years the use of the airbrush in magazine cover portraits is getting out of hand. Early on the most absurd seemed to be limited to "Men's" magazines like Maxim and whatever. And while it's ridiculous, and in fact just not sexy, somehow it wasn't too bothersome, it's not like anybody expects anything more from these kind of eye-candy driven magazines.
But nowadays it's just creeping up everywhere. Look through any advertisement flyer. Probably even one for "Sears" women's section. Everybody is airbrushed to hell. Women and Men. But it's like everybody is getting used to it so they keep pushing and pushing it. Like we are actually accepting that people look like that. Soon they will be able to completely do away with models and just have purely computer generated images.

But the point of this post was for you to check out this website, advertising for "retouching".
Click on 'portfolio', then click on the pictures, then mouse over the large photos of celebrities for before-after. And then be prepared to gag. WTF? Not only are complexions turned to alien-smooth ivory, but thighs are thinned, chins are pulled in, eyes modified, asses given more curves or cut down.
And then you wonder if there is one human image in today's entertainment or advertising for ANYTHING that hasn't been dramatically modified. It's to the point where I don't think anybody could argue this can't be healthy for society.

Illustrated nicely in this video:


From this old post on Shakesville.
Where there are actually a number of posts on the "impossibly beautiful" theme.