photoshopperific

Scott Westerfeld is discussing how weird Photoshop is, especially when it is used to make people look perfect. Of course, that’s not all it’s used to do. Sometimes it’s used to change our hair color, or the color of the clothes we wear, or etc.

For instance, check out this (original version on the left):

Who knew my top was red? And that I had black hair?

I don’t think I’m against the photoshopping that vanishes zits, or unsightly pores, or bags under the eyes. It’s the equivalent of digital makeup. I do, however, find it a bit disturbing when the photoshopping renders the individual 20 years younger and 40 pounds lighter than the photo. Though maybe I’ll feel differently when such rendering wouldn’t leave me looking too young to be reading chapter books, let alone writing them. But there were suggestions made by certain parties that my author photos (below) should have some, er, breasts photoshopped in (like they did to the model in Scott’s blog.

They *did* touch up the photo, brightening the colors slightly, and smoothing out some dark circles under my eyes (I was on the brink of a very bad cold that day). Oh, whatever, I would have had those circles blinked out, anyway. Digital coverup, m’dear. I did photoshop out the scar. 😉

However, I drew the line at pumping me up. Though considering the Blaze cover, I realize that this move has probably left me open to the type of speculation usually reserved for celebrities. I was always curious about how figures looked so different from photo spread to photo spread, but now that I have photographic evidence of what can be accomplished with a corset (Blaze cover) I’m rethinking my whole wardrobe. All hail the girdle, if that’s what it can do.

For a bookcover, they can photoshop whatever they want onto me. There’s one out now where I had my fingers crossed for fangs (it’s paranormal). Didn’t happen, but they gave me magenta skin. That was cool. But for my author photo, I wanted verisimilitude, even if it was a slightly more honey-toned version of it. There’s nothing worse than showing up at a booksigning and not recognizing the face on the back cover. And yeah, call me crazy, but I wanted to look good. I got my hair cut, I put on makeup for once in my life… I tried to present a pretty face.

So whether it’s photoshop or pancake makeup, plastic surgery or just a really good bra, the point is is that these images in magazine ads and on book covers (I mean COVERS, not author photos) are not meant to be a reflection of reality. It’s kind of like how they use Elmer’s glue instead of milk in the pictures of cereal they put on the front of cereal boxes. It’s whiter, and rounder, and doesn’t make the cereal soggy. However, a book cover is one thing, but a magazine, which is supposedly portraying truth with it’s super-airbrushed celebs… the problem comes when people think that is truth. (James Frey, cough cough). And they try to achieve those results at home. They try to look like images that don’t exist in real life, to risk their lives in an attempt to do so. I’m not cool with that, and I don’t like thinking that people could be looking at my Blaze bookcover and saying that they want those breasts.

So I’m telling you now. They aren’t real. They are entirely corset-caused. And they aren’t too comfy.

But of course, if you want to experiment with some Vicki’s Secret, be my guest. At the end of the day, you can unhook the corset. You don’t get that option with implants.