Should Photoshopped Images Be Labelled?
In light of the growing controversies surrounding ‘corrected’ pictures in the media, two Cosmo girls debate the pros and cons of the tool.
NO!
Manasa Madishetty, Photographer
“Photoshop and technology make everything look the way it does! I think you would be really disappointed if we started printing pictures without any editing. I know that every debate on this leads to a discussion on ‘body image’, but if you’ve got your ethics straight, Photoshop can be your BFF. Post-processing is a method that was used in all mediums of photography, even before a software like Photoshop was invented. It’s done to pump colours, even out tones, adjust contrast and saturation, clean skin, etc. Professionals normally shoot in a raw format which gives us the real image with real time colours. So, of course, we have to use an editing software to process the picture we need. As long as you’re not making an image look fake and artificial, Photoshop is fine!”
YES!
Lavanya Sankaran, Author of
The Hope Factory
“Everyone loves to look at ‘perfect’ images of women, men, puppies, babies, flowers—we’re only human after all! It makes us happy. But then we mess it up by confusing these pictures with reality, and start judging ourselves and the people around us by the standards that have been subconsciously set by them. We find ourselves plagued with questions like: why aren’t the flowers in my garden so dewy? Why doesn’t my man have a sixpack? Why aren’t my thighs so skinny? While the falseness of pictures starts during the hours of ‘hair and make-up’, Photoshop takes it to another level of unreality. Perhaps instead of the ‘This image has been Photoshopped!’ disclaimer, the label just needs to say ‘Warning: not real life’.”