Picture Retouching Research Paper

In today’s society, the average American woman is 5’4” and weighs 140 pounds. The average model displayed in the media is 5’11” and weighs 114 pounds. Take a minute to consider that extreme difference in weight and height. This statistic alone is shocking, but the fact that these models undergo intense retouching before ever being seen in magazines and advertisements has an effect on what women today, view as standard beauty. A large amount of research shows that the distorted image of women portrayed in the mass media has a large correlation to how women look and feel about themselves. Image altering through software such as Photoshop is damaging society by creating an unrealistic beauty standard and causing body image issues among women,

Beauty company Dove, performed a study among three thousand two hundred women in ten different countries. They determined that 68% of the women surveyed strongly agreed with the phrase “the media and advertising set an unrealistic standard of beauty that most women can’t ever achieve.” One of the driving factors of why women cannot achieve what the media portrays as ideal beauty is because of Photoshop. Those that retouch photographs often use Photoshop to erase blemishes and wrinkles, slim thighs to be stick-thin, mold the body into an hourglass shape, and blend skin for a silky, smooth complexion. The majority of models are portrayed as perfect Barbie dolls. This is not what the average woman even remotely looks like, and it is very dangerous for women to be surrounded by these misleading, simulated images, everyday believing that it depicts ideal beauty. SELF-Magazine conducted a study, sadly learning that 70% of women surveyed said they compared themselves to others on social media either constantly or occasionally. When women endlessly equate themselves to such misleading images in the media, it often evokes the idea that this falsely portrayed model represents the norm or how the average woman looks. The use of Photoshop in retouching photos is extremely detrimental to the thoughts of women by creating an impractical body image that is physically