Photo editors around the world are often guilty of a few things. Making women too thin, airbrushing every line from someone’s face, and strangely enough, pretending women don’t have armpits. I get the purpose of the first two: we, as a society, have decided looking sickly thin is most attractive and we’re currently trying to claw our way out of it, but most magazines and ads have not caught up. I blame Facetune for perpetuating this bullsh*t and making everyone think it’s okay to erase out their rib cages, too. The wrinkle erasing makes sense too because we also, as a society, are anti-aging, which is why so many people of my mother’s generation can’t move their faces. Neither can the cast of Vanderpump Rules, just because they are so afraid of aging. But like, I understand what they’re trying to do with those types of edits. They’re attempting to make everyone look young and thin. But seriously, what is the deal with the armpits?
Selena Gomez, one of the most beautiful women ever, posted some pics from her new music video:
And uh, I can’t help but notice something’s missing? Why are her arms growing directly out of her boobs? She should probably have that looked at by a doctor? I’m not sure why we’re at this point in photo editing where BASIC 👏 ANATOMY👏 RULES 👏 no longer apply, but come on, everyone has armpits, even celebrities! It’s how your arms connect to the rest of your body!
And BTW, this is not a hair removal effect. If you shave, you’ll still have follicles and pores showing. If you wax or laser and no longer have hair in the follicle, you still have creases and pits because that is how your arm attaches to the rest of you. I did laser hair removal, and I assure you, it does not laser off the entire armpit. This edit just makes you wonder, if they’re going so far to erase out something as basic as armpits, what else did they edit?
The second photo in the carousel shows that she kind of has real person armpits, but it’s a weird angle:
So I did some detective work to show you that this is not a real thing. But guess what?
There was more of this sh*t! Does Selena ask them to remove her armpits in every photo or is this just so widespread literally everyone does it now?
This one is a little better;
I mean, there’s at least a crease but it’s still smoothed out like she’s a Barbie doll!
It took me digging until 2015 to find a photo with Selena’s actual armpits still intact.
And it still totally looks like she got laser hair removal, btw. I would know, I am also pale with dark hair and you can see your follicles under the skin unless you wax/laser. But here is your proof! Selena Gomez DOES in fact have armpits. Like a real person! Celebrities, they’re just like us!
Case closed.
Now, if only we knew why they are constantly airbrushed out for no apparent reason? Do you guys notice when you see things like this airbrushed on celebrities? Do you think it’s creepy or that it actually looks better? How do you feel about women not being allowed to have armpits anymore to be considered attractive? What’s the weirdest airbrush job you’ve seen? LMK!
Giphy: Instagram (@selenagomez); Giphy
Another day, another Kardashian/Jenner abusing the laws of physics. Seriously, guys, if you quit posting horrible edits, I might have to actually get a real job. Thanks for keeping my paychecks coming! Anyway, as we well know, basic laws of the universe just don’t apply to the Kar/Jenner Klan. Their asses warp walls, they make millions from posting about diarrhea tea, Kim even gets people out of jail now. Actually, that one makes me really like her, like good for you for using your powers for good for once instead of telling women they need appetite suppressing lollipops. But today, the Jenner girls are once again abusing all that is science. Nothing is sacred in this family, especially not anatomy.
Is this physics? Maybe it’s more biology? Don’t know, I was an art major. But, guys, I hate to have to tell you this, but Kendall and Kylie Jenner somehow got into some freak accident and have now become joined at the hip. Literally.
My first reaction upon seeing this: What the f*ck exactly am I even looking at? It’s basically a Jenner octopus—just like, limbs all over the place. A Jennerpus. Nope, sorry, that is definitely the inevitable sex tape one of them will release in the near future. It’s an OctoJenner. Our new favorite sea critter! Whatever you want to call it, it is weird, and it’s a super strange ad.
Like, what are they trying to sell us? Apparently the new fall collection for the Kendall and Kylie line? One, I did not know this was still a thing, does Pacsun still carry it? Does Pacsun still exist, actually? Do the youths shop there? Two, they’re not even wearing pants. Like, what are they selling? This is not an appropriate fall outfit, even in SoCal. Their fall line consists of sheer tops, animal print panties/bikini bottoms, and a single Minion-yellow sweater? And a cowboy hat? Really?
That aside, this is just the strangest photo ever. I would like to compliment that at least the girls have a normal width-to-thigh ratio instead of the toothpick Facetune work they’re so fond of, but the perspective is so badly warped that what we are looking at makes no sense. Kendall’s knee is bigger than her face. Her hand is also enormous due to the distortion. Who was like, “yes, the perfect shot”—to sell clothing, no less—”is to take the picture vagina first. Everything should be at vagina-eye level”? I mean. What?
And it’s not just the director of this photoshoot that done f*cked up. THE EDITING. Where to even begin with the editing? If someone handed me this photo to retouch, I’d just throw it away. It’s too weird to even try to fix. The first thing is that I’m not sure they were even photographed on this backdrop. Which is weird, because it’s a really plain, easy-to-shoot backdrop. But they look like they were cut out and pasted on it. The lines around them are blurred and smoothed and flat in places that don’t make sense. Kylie’s hair is blowing in the wind, but only on the bottom half? The top half has clearly been cut from another image. I’m not even convinced they were both in the original photo. It almost seems like they cut two separate photos of the girls in weird pretzel positions and spliced them together. Or maybe just swapped out the heads?
Like, look at this:
In drawing, this is a big no-no. You never want tangent lines because they look unrealistic and confusing. You’re telling me Kendall’s hat just happened to end at the same super-smooth angle of her hair? And then there are a couple random strands placed back in. What did they cut her out of? Why didn’t they just take the photo on the backdrop? Did they just swap her face from a different photo and do it very poorly? The world will never know.
But that’s not all!
This one is funny, because I have opposing feedback for this portion of the photo. One part is too much editing and the other part is not enough. The too much is… why is Kylie’s ass glowing? Yes, I realize she paid a lot for it, and asses are their brand, but like… they literally just backlit only her butt cheek? I don’t understand? The photo has been lit in front of them, that’s why we can see shadows behind them. #Science. So. There should a shadow behind her ass, not a new source of lighting? Once again, science does not apply to this family. Unless Kylie has her own butt light at photoshoots now, which I wouldn’t really put past her, tbh.
This almost never happens, but Kendall’s hand behind Kylie is where I would actually criticize not enough editing. This looks f*cking weird. It also distorts where they are in space to me—like again, were they photographed together? I usually hate when limbs are edited out because it often looks really horrible and like there is clearly an arm missing. But in this case, Kendall is hidden enough by Kylie that we didn’t need to see her single finger poking out of Kylie’s asshole to understand that her arm is back there somewhere. This should have been edited out, 100%. It just looks wrong.
But here’s my favorite part:
WHAT has happened here? Kylie’s knee is literally growing into Kendall’s arm. What could they possibly have meant to do to result in Kylie’s knee disintegrating and blurring into Kendall’s wrist? I don’t even have answers here, but it again leads me to believe they didn’t take the photo together and then the editor didn’t know how to make it look realistic that Kendall’s arm is over the leg, so they just sorta… smashed it all together. It looks like her knee is cartoon chewing gum.
IDK girls, maybe next time you try to sell us clothing, strongly consider wearing the clothing in a cute way so we can see what it looks like on. Instead of posing in bikini bottoms on top of each other but not actually in the same room as each other. But if you don’t, at least I have job security.
Is the worst Photoshop job you’ve seen in a while? Did you notice immediately what was wrong with the photo? Do you think posing as pretzels is a weird way to sell clothes, or that it’s weird to lay on top of your sister when you’re both only wearing thongs on bottom? LMK!
On a body-positive note, Kim Kardashian did a whole tutorial today about the extensive process she uses to make her boobs not sag in certain outfits. I actually really love this. Look, we all have boob sag, we all have issues with backless or super low-cut clothing. My advice is to say f*ck it and wear it anyway. Kim’s method looks like it hurts and takes up a lot of time. But if you’re going to do some trickery like taping your nipples and boobs together to make them look propped up, being open about it is pretty cool. You can do whatever you want with your body, but I feel like most of the toxicity comes from the idea that this is what women are supposed to look like naturally, and how you look is “wrong”, especially when coming from a public figure. At least talking openly about it—even if she’s only doing it to charge you a ton of money for literal tape—shows that all women have this problem and no one has perfect boobs. Good job, Kim!
Images: Instagram (@kendallandkylie), (@kimkardashian); Giphy (2)
For today’s Photoshop Fail, I was sent this horrible, horrible photo from Revolve. Look, I love to shop online. I love avoiding the store—no lines, no wearing pants, and no carrying heavy bags. The only true flaw of online shopping is when OnTrac holds your packages hostage but says it’ll be delivered “tomorrow” and then does this for 10 days. Okay, there are two flaws. The second is that it’s impossible to know what looks good on you without trying it on. It doesn’t help when websites use superhumanly thin models that are also 10 feet tall as a gauge of what it looks like. Some brands are on it, and show clothing on a variety of body types and do minimal editing. But most tend to do what I’m about to show you. This is one of those things that gives women unrealistic expectations for their bodies. They will hire extremely thin models and then edit them to make them even thinner. Like, what? The thinnest women in the world are not thin enough for you still? Here is the offending photo that is the subject of today’s Photoshop fail:
There are so many fails with this, it’s hilarious and also very sad for women on a whole. As if we’re not dealing with enough right now. The first thing is that she is airbrushed absolutely everywhere—which is pretty typical and IMO totally pointless. Even worse and terribly common, is that her body has been cut down EVERYWHERE. You can tell because she has soft, blurry edges. If you look at a real photo of a person, you have hard edges, because your arm or whatever does not blur into the background. Since this is a pure white background, it’s normal to “cut out” the model to get rid of what was behind her, but they went into her body too far to make her look thinner. Also? NEVER use a soft, airbrush eraser on hard edges. Here it is close up of what I mean:
You can especially see the sloppy erasing where her wrist connects, but the soft edges are pretty much everywhere. Then they went and shaved down her rib cage too, because women aren’t allowed to have ribs in today’s society. It actually looks like they made the stomach lines too soft so they went back and drew in a VERY crude outline in an attempt to fix it:
It’s like some asshole took the brush tool and just drew back a hard edge on her stomach? It looks like he traced her with a marker? SO, so sloppy. But hey, if even the super thin model needs to be erased out and then drawn back in to fit into today’s standards, that just shows that you should NEVER feel bad that something doesn’t look the same on the model as it does on you.
To compare what an unedited person looks like, Modcloth doesn’t do excessive editing to their models. I say “excessive” because I’m sure they fix lighting, color, and maybe get rid of a pimple or two here and there. But just look at the difference:
ModCloth x Dupenny The Geena High-Waisted Bikini Bottom
Four for you, Modcloth, you go, Modcloth. This model has hard edges everywhere, none of which look like they were drawn back in with a Sharpie. This is most likely the model’s true body and how the swimsuit looks on a real person. This is what everyone should do—just dress your models in flattering cuts! If they wanted to cut out the background, they could start cutting outside of her body lines, not shaving parts of it away with a soft brush the way Revolve has.
These issues are the least of this poor model’s problems though. This very thin woman does not seem to have large breasts. Apparently that’s not okay with Revolve, because they decided to do this to her:
I actually laughed out loud when I saw this. Can you see the problem? In an attempt to give her breasts when she clearly does not have large ones, they used the Burn tool to shade in huge lumps on top of her chest. This is so poorly done, because the only way to get top of boob lines is if you’re pushing up your breasts or have implants. In either case, you would have cleavage. Which she doesn’t. So they’ve only truly succeeded in giving her some scary, half-assed pecs. Which, again, would still have some kind of central line cleavage. It looks so much worse than—gasp—a woman with small breasts.
However, we’re not even done. Let me introduce the TRUE STAR of today’s Photoshop fail.
Quick question: Does that look natural to you? That just isn’t how your thighs/butt work. It doesn’t connect with a line through part of it like these are separate pieces sewn together. This is the part that jumped out to me immediately that something was off here. Also? How saggy would her butt need to be for you to see it through her thighs and hanging down the back? It makes zero anatomical sense.
It looks like she didn’t have a thigh gap, so they put one in. In an attempt to make it look less like they cut a rectangle out of her vagina (looking at you, Target), they cut down her thighs but left that weird top portion. That is her true thigh width. Then they cut in some white lines on either side to make it look like a separate piece. It doesn’t make any sense though, because if this was truly her butt cheek, it wouldn’t be highlighted, it would have shadows. They literally put white divider lines around it so it didn’t look attached to her thigh. Also? Your butt is attached to your thigh, you just wouldn’t see it at this angle, unless you have an extremely saggy butt. The result looks more like she has some weird inner thigh tumor. Apparently tumors are now better than having your thighs touch in today’s fashion. Who knew?
Hopefully this opens your eyes to how full of sh*t our models and advertising are. Don’t compare yourself to these images, they are generally all lies. It’s okay that you don’t have an inner thigh tumor in your photos. It’s okay to be flat-chested and not have superhero top pecs. You do you.
