Should ads and magazines be required to say a photo has been 'shopped?

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**Kid_Kyoto**

So I've been looking at this blog

http://photoshopdisasters.blogspot.com/

and seeing how magazines will relentlessly photoshop celebreties and models to make the into something they're not. Even Jessica Alba is not immune.

http://photoshopdisasters.blogspot.com/search?q=alba

Should they be required to reveal that a photo has been manipulated, just like car ads have to remind us they've got professional drivers on a closed road and that your sports car will never get over 50 mph because of traffic?

**Orkeosaurus**

I don't see how it can be a requirement, unless the person's body is somehow making a claim about a product.

**GoFenris**

Actually, I would say yes. Because the better at this stuff we and technology gets the harder it is to tell reality from well, not. But then again, it is an advert. Shouldn't that be enough to know it's 99% bullgak anyway?

You know, I would still say yes. hit them now before it does become impossible to tell. Then again, Orkeosaurus has a valid point. Oh, hell call me Favre.

**Kid_Kyoto**

In the US at least it would be easier to do with ads than with say celebrity 'news' magazines that routinely make them thinner or erase wrinkles.

Ads are commercial speech do not have 1st ammendment protection and are subject to all sorts of truth in advertising laws. That's why Barbie ads remind kids that Barbie cannot actually run around on her own, why car ads have to remind you not to try hugging the corners at 100mph on your street and why drug ads have those great lists of side effects.

**GoFenris**

Okay, then I say yes, again!

**Orkeosaurus**

Truth in advertising means truth in regards to the product, though.

If my Toyota truck explodes out of a volcano the ad needs to say that it's not possible (for some reason), but if a dinosaur explodes out of a volcano in an advertisement for a truck the ad isn't required to tell you that a dinosaur can't do that. They're not selling a dinosaur.

**dogma**

Orkeosaurus wrote:Truth in advertising means truth in regards to the product, though..

You could claim that the product is the image being presented.

**Orkeosaurus**

So if the car has a forest in the background, they are selling both a car and a forest?

**Kid_Kyoto**

My Toyota can explode out of a volcano.

It just chooses not to.

**malfred**

Just make them tell me when the pictures are real.

**Wrexasaur**

Woah there pal... this is about as complicated as a relationship with a rabid antelope... which I am totally not having...

**dogma**

Orkeosaurus wrote:So if the car has a forest in the background, they are selling both a car and a forest?

Not image as in a literal picture, but image as in aesthetic.

The dodge lies in subjectivity: ie. "We think this will make you beautiful, but we make no claim regarding your health."

More simplistically, the advertiser is claiming that clothing item X will look as presented when placed on woman Y, but if woman Y's image is altered they are effectively making a fraudulent claim.

**Orkeosaurus**

Ah, for clothing specifically - or perhaps some sort of weight loss supplement, makeup, etc - I see what you mean. I was thinking more in lines of your average non-sequitur attractive female model advertising juice or something.

Still, the model in question is sort of an unknown at any rate. If a normally sized model is made to look thin, and comes out looking exactly the same as a thin model, what's the difference? In both cases you're not going to look like that wearing that article of clothing (unless you are very thin yourself, I guess).

Still, if the photoshopping is altering proportion I could see where it gets strange; it's not a recreation of an actual circumstance so much as an impossible one being created. If the model is well known there would also be a frame of reference for the reader to compare the photoshoppped image to, thus possibly leading the reader to think that the article of clothing is what's making the well known model look thinner.

**Wrexasaur**

At what point do people just do their own thing though? Skinny models are going out of fashion at any rate though. I could care less what advertisers think works, as long as parent's are responsible enough to moderate that kind of thing for their kids.

Adults are allowed to do stuff, that is the lay of the land, and I personally see few problems with it. If their were more community activism addressing some of the "side-effects" of such an idealistic culture consumption culture; I think I could live with that.

If you do not feel like muting AD's, then stop watching everything. Your ears come with a built in noise blocker... which I like to call a brain.

**Kid_Kyoto**

Here's a good example

http://photoshopdisasters.blogspot.com/2008/04/burger-king-fingers-unfingerable.html

apparently most of the food we see in ads is photoshopped in, the models have empty hands pretnding to hold the item in question. Same with jewlery and other items.

So again, the product does not actually look like what they are putting in the ad.

**person person**

When its something like that then Yes. If it alters the original product basically.

**Orkeosaurus**

Fast food burgers don't look like they do in the ads, but that's usually not because of photoshop.

They actually hire people to create "the perfect burger" for their ads. As in, they seriously can spend hours getting it to look right. Half the time they're not really edible, because of the glue they used to put the sesame seeds on the bun or whatever. (Which kind of makes you wonder why it should be different with technology...)

**Kid_Kyoto**

Orkeosaurus wrote:Fast food burgers don't look like they do in the ads, but that's usually not because of photoshop.

They actually hire people to create "the perfect burger" for their ads. As in, they seriously can spend hours getting it to look right. Half the time they're not really edible, because of the glue they used to put the sesame seeds on the bun or whatever. (Which kind of makes you wonder why it should be different with technology...)

WHich could be considered deceptive. Like photoshopping a model to impossible proportions and trying to sell the clothes she wears.

**Kilkrazy**

In the UK adverts don't have to be truthful unless they make specific claims. If they make specific but ridiculous claims, that is all right too.

For example:

The Lynx Effect (Axe bodyspray for men)
Claims that if you wear Lynx (Axe,) you will have to beat off the sexy women with a stick.

Advertising a financial product would be completely different and has to comply with laws requiring it to start the APR, and so on.

Cigarette advertising has been outlawed.

Drinks advertising is limited in what it can depict.

There are moves to ban junk food advertising to children. The food manufacturers of course claim the adverts have no effect, which is obviously crap as they would not use them in that case.

The basic assumption is that adverts are merely puffs and the public should be intelligent enough not to believe them. However, if an advert contains specific terms, it can form part of a contract, which is enforceable by law.

In my opinion, children are an exception to the general rule as clearly their critical faculties are not properly developed, so they are unable to make a sensible decision about advertising.

**Cane**

To answer the thread title, HELL NO! However to play along via devil's advocate why not extend the premise to include things like makeup, special lighting, professional photography, corsets, etc. since all of these follows the same line of thought of: anything that alters the image should be noted.

Onto the self-esteem "Oh No I am fat" topic: Tough gak. The media puts out ideal images of both sexes and its only the weak-minded, relatively idiotic segment of the population that really gets worked over this area of life (yes, young people generally fall under this category). If you're puking in the toilet because you feel fat when in reality you look like Ally McBeal then you've got mental problems that go beyond magazine covers and supermodels.

I suppose it doesn't help that the new generations are being brainwashed by parents/teachers/TV that they're all special, number one, "the best", etc --- this kind of bs thinking sets people up to turn into narcissistic donkey-caves even though they haven't earned gak or have the experience to warrant such a "I'm the best" mentality. When an obese girl is confronted with what men find attractive, which may not be the case with this particular topic's image's inspiration but definitely the case in say the swimsuit edition of SI, they should feel down and less beautiful BECAUSE THEY ARE! Sad facts of reality and you just gotta accept that not everyone looks like a Greek god or goddess. Cry about it, accept it, and move on.