Retouching is the manipulation of photographs to alter their appearance, often done digitally. It is commonly used in advertising and fashion photography but has been criticized for creating unrealistic standards. The use of retouching in news and political imagery has also been controversial due to its potential for deception.
Retouching is a process by which a photograph is altered or manipulated to look different than it originally did. This can be done in a number of ways and for a variety of reasons, although it is often used to make a photograph appear sharper or to alter someone’s appearance in a photo. While this type of work was originally done physically, most is now done through digital manipulation of images using computer software. Retouching is often used in advertising, although its use in news and political imagery has been the source of much controversy.
Many retouching is used for photography in advertising and fashion magazines, often used to make objects and people appear more perfect than they really are. This is similar to earlier techniques which often used airbrushes and other methods to retouch or retouch photographs. Most of this work is not meant to be gimmicky, but simply to make objects appear as perfect as possible. There is some criticism of the use of retouching in fashion photography, however, and some argue that it creates an unrealistic standard against which real people are unfairly compared.
Most retouching is currently done using computer software and digital images. While the Photoshop® program is perhaps the best-known photo manipulation software, there are a number of other programs that can also be used to digitally edit and retouch photographs. These programs provide users with a number of tools for editing images, including the ability to crop an image, lighten and darken parts of an image, and digitally airbrush images to appear smoother or perfect. This software also allows those interested in retouching to easily place one person’s face on another’s body.
The use of retouching in fashion or advertising photography has been somewhat criticized, but much more controversy has arisen from retouched photographs used in politics or in the news. Because digital image manipulation has made it easier and faster to edit photographs in a variety of ways, some critics have railed against news reports that feature edited images. This can be seen as a form of deceptive journalism, as an image can be depicted in a way that may not be accurate to the original scene captured in it. Retouching has also been used in the history of photography to alter images for use in political propaganda, which is often seen as manipulative and deceptive.
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