Uncovering Photoshop Manipulation with Rachel Gregorio

We see them every day: celebrities looking pixel perfect on the covers of magazines like Vogue, Glamour, and Marie Claire.  We aspire to have their perfectly chiseled bodies, their porcelain complexions, and their striking eyes. 

When looking at a Lancôme advertisement featuring the classic Julia Roberts, however, Rachel Gregorio couldn’t take her eyes away but not out of admiration.  Something wasn’t right.  There was not a single line on the actress’ face.  In fact, Gregorio thought she looked perfectly fake. 

Gregorio, a senior Communication and Studio Art double major, says she had always been interested in analyzing advertisements and their visual components, but when she began coming across articles about the misleading retouching that goes into these ads, her hobby turned into something much more: her senior Studio Art project.  Through her project, Gregorio hopes to show just how much Photoshop manipulates the photos we see every day.  

So how did she start her project?  By teaching herself to become a Photoshop pro (and as my TA in Digital Diaries, I can attest… pro, she most certainly is).  She has taught herself everything she needs to know to “enhance” an person’s image: bigger eyes, a smaller nose, thinner chin, curvier hips, plumper lips, and the list goes on.  According to the artist, all it takes are a few Photoshop techniques (blending, dodging, smoothing, shading, burning, painting, for you Photoshop buffs) to completely transform someone.

It all seems pretty cool, and sure, we all know that magazines Photoshop everything, but do we, really?
“I think the impact of the enhancements is very subconscious, which is partially why I decided to start my project,” says Gregorio.  “While there are some articles surfacing about the issues, lots of people (especially adolescents) have NO idea what Photoshop can do. I’ve shown my project to lots of my college friends and even they—educated young adults—are shocked and ‘had no idea.’  Therefore, when someone is flipping through a magazine, they’re rarely looking at the photo manipulation (like I do now), but rather are saying how beautiful or thin or fit they look, when it’s completely unattainable.”

Gregorio’s project is a video that takes the viewer through the process of transforming someone’s photograph on Photoshop.  The ending result is incredible.  I watched as Gregorio transformed a beautiful girl into a computerized manikin, much like the ones we see in magazines every day.

Gregorio calls attention to the fact that we often place celebrities on pedestals, and looking at their photographs, why shouldn’t we?  Jillian Michaels has zero body fat, Zooey Deschanel’s eyes are radiantly blue and her skin that of a doll, and Kim Kardashian’s butt is out of this world.  These celebs, however, although undoubtedly beautiful, aren’t as perfect as the magazines portray them.  In fact, their beauty often seems so unattainable, because it is.  Retouchers use Photoshop to transform celebrities from beautiful, natural humans to paintings of “perfect” beings. 

So where is the industry heading?  Is there any hope that one day we will see a magazine cover that only retouches a star’s blemishes?  Will retouchers ever just use Photoshop to adjust contrast, exposure, and elements like saturation?  Gregorio is unsure, but says that some magazines and advertisements are beginning to publish disclaimers or warnings about photo manipulation. 

As the semester continues, Gregorio’s project comes closer and closer to completion, and she couldn’t seem more passionate and enthusiastic about its progress. 

“I’d like to inform people about these practices and let them know the danger of photo manipulation,” says Gregorio.  “I’ve done a bunch of retouching on faces and bodies of friends and family that is VERY drastic. I don’t think the retouching in magazines is necessarily as drastic, but they are unrecognizable by the time I’m done with them.”

Perhaps most interestingly, Gregorio even retouched a photograph of herself. 

“It was pretty depressing to see how I could fix all of my ‘flaws’ with a few clicks of the button,” she confesses.  “I don’t mean to depress people, but quite the opposite. When they see my project, I hope they are like, ‘Wow, I am beautiful even though I don’t look like the cover of a magazine.’”