In the United Kingdom, two cosmetic ads were recently pulled from circulation. One, from L'Oreal's Maybelline division, featured model Christy Turlington, and the other, from Lancombe, featured Julia Roberts. That's not the issue, as Turlington and Roberts are the kind of people who would appear in makeup ads, being attractive, famous women. The issue is, instead, that they were digitally enhanced, with Photoshop being used to make them look more flawless than they would in their regular lives.
A lot of ink has been spilled regarding whether or not heavy digital modification is leading people to having body image issues. The argument is that the practice leads to an unattainable standard being idealized. That is also one of the arguments against the two advertisements mentioned. With the makeup ads, however, that unattainable standard is much more flagrant, because we have an example where the product advertised should be able to get the results pictured.
Digital manipulation of a makeup ad is misleading, if the results cannot be obtained with heavy touch ups in post-production then it's clear that the product will not behave as advertised. However, I wonder if the ads were designed to be misleading from the outset, or if the post-production work was instead a symptom of mere laziness. Given the ease of digital manipulation for such ads, it's quite possible that they didn't go through the effort to get the photo right the first time.
In the case of both advertisements, the spokesperson is a very famous woman, likely one whose schedules are difficult to align and who is only going to be available for short periods of time. If, for whatever reason, the picture didn't turn out as planned, it could take a while to get retakes. Or, one could just do a bit of touch up with what they did get, ignoring that it's quite silly to do so when you're supposed to be advertising makeup. It's the easiest solution, rather than the best one.
Many people have noticed that in these ads there is a lot more digital manipulation than ever before, and I wonder how much of it is people who just don't put the effort in to get the shot right in-camera. If one sees an imperfection, it's easier to open up Photoshop than it is to get Roberts back and reapply the makeup. In this case, I wonder if that was what actually happened.
That said, I'm not saying that the advertisers are right in this instance. In fact, I hope that this is something of a wake up call for all of the cosmetics industry, especially their advertising agencies. It's very tempting to remove all imperfections in an image to get the "best possible" look, even if it leaves reality behind and makes the subject look unnatural. It's also very tempting to cut corners in a time consuming photo shoot and just fix anything wrong later.
Now that these ads are pulled, hopefully that temptation is gone and they'll actually put the effort in to get the results in the photo shoot itself. Whatever one thinks of the cosmetics industry, getting them to put effort in to prove their products can do what they show is at least a step in the right direction. Just because digital manipulation is easy, doesn't mean it's the direction to go.
