Another week, more proof that no one is immune to the smoothing, recoloring, and reshaping effects of Photoshop. No, not even the Biebs. Maybe you drooled over Justin Bieber's just-released Calvin Klein ads or maybe you rolled your eyes (or both). In any case, it appears we can't attribute Bieber's physique to genetics and gym-going alone. BreatheHeavy.com claims to have obtained an unretouched photo, above, from the CK shoot that proves the brand exaggerated the size of Bieber's, well, almost everything. But, most noticeably — his package. (His head, for some reason, got smaller. Insert your own joke about his ego here.)
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In other Photoshop news, Jezebel reported on a high-school student who took to Reddit to share her own tale of retouching. She described her outrage upon receiving a student ID with a thinner, "prettier" version of her face. "I have a round face that I have grown to love and now I get my photo back with a different face," the young woman wrote. "The new photo no longer even looks like me but rather a prettier twin sister. When we go and have our photos taken we are flat out told that our skin will be retouched to hide blemishes. We are not told, however, that more drastic changes are made." She indicated "face smoothing," "skin recoloring," "lip recoloring," "eyebrow smoothing and reshaping," and "face thinning" as the changes made to her original portrait. We would be jarred, too, if we received a photo of ourselves so dramatically altered without our permission — the implicit message being, "This isn't what you look like, but it's what we think you should look like!"
Later, the student updated her post to reflect that the photography company hired by her school was responsible for the changes, and that the school would be using students' unretouched photos in the yearbook. "My school has proved that they are fully behind positive body image," she wrote. "I want this issue of photoshopping to get the attention it needs but know that my school has realized that their students do not need to be 'corrected.'"
Schools, of course, aren't selling products, and beyond red-eye correction and the occasional blemish removal, there's no basis for retouching photos of students — especially without their consent. As for Justin's new-and-improved CK physique, the ads serve as a reminder that even someone who's famous, young, gym-obsessed, and besieged with adoring fans isn't immune to the pressures of unattainable beauty standards.