Retouched Models: What Before-and-After Photoshop Videos Reveal

Hey, girls, you are more beautiful than Vogue’s models! We can prove that.

If you have ever stood in front of a mirror after flicking through a fashion magazine and felt you fell short, here is the short answer: the faces and bodies on glossy covers and in big advertising campaigns are very often not real photographs of real bodies. They are starting points. Skin is smoothed, waists are narrowed, necks are stretched, eyes are enlarged and stray hairs vanish before an image reaches print.

That is not a conspiracy theory. Retouchers talk openly about it, regulators in several countries now require labels on edited bodies, and short films have shown the whole process step by step. The three videos below are among the clearest demonstrations, and they make a point worth remembering: comparing yourself with a retouched picture means comparing yourself with something nobody looks like, including the model.

What the Before-and-After Videos Show

Each clip takes a slightly different angle on the same process. Watching them in a row is a quick education in how much work goes into a "natural" picture.

The first is BuzzFeed's Unreal Celebrity Photoshop Transformations, a fast montage of well-known faces being reshaped in editing software. Jawlines tighten, arms slim down, skin loses every pore. Seeing the changes layered one after another makes it obvious that the final image is a design decision, not a snapshot.

The second is the trailer for Killing Us Softly 4 (2010), the latest film in a series by the educator and former model Jean Kilbourne. She began giving her slide lecture on advertising's image of women in the 1970s, and the first film version appeared in 1979. Her argument is broader than airbrushing: she says advertising repeatedly turns women into objects and sets an ideal that is literally impossible, because it is manufactured.

The third, The Photoshop Effect, walks through a single portrait edit in detail. It is useful because it slows everything down: you can watch an ordinary, attractive photo become a polished advertising image, one adjustment at a time.

How Much Editing Is Normal in Fashion Photography

Retouching itself is old. Portrait painters flattered their sitters for centuries, and darkroom technicians were scratching blemishes off negatives long before computers. What changed with digital tools is speed, scale and invisibility. Today a skilled retoucher can alter body proportions so smoothly that even trained eyes struggle to spot it.

According to the overview of photo manipulation on Wikipedia, the most common edits in advertising and fashion are smoothing skin, removing blemishes and wrinkles, and slimming bodies. Some professionals go further and say that, in commercial work, you should assume any image without a label has been retouched.

A few typical changes you can learn to notice:

Skin with no texture. Real skin has pores, fine hairs and small colour changes, even on teenagers.
Impossible proportions. Very long necks, tiny waists paired with full hips, or legs that seem longer than the frame allows.
Warped backgrounds. Door frames, tiles or horizon lines that bend near a slimmed arm or waist.
Identical faces across campaigns. When several different models end up with the same jaw, nose and eye shape, the editing is doing the styling.

One of the best-known demonstrations remains Dove's 75-second film Evolution from 2006, made by Ogilvy & Mather in Toronto. It shows a woman going through make-up and hair, then a photo shoot, then software edits that lengthen her neck and enlarge her eyes, until she becomes a billboard. The film won two Grand Prix awards at Cannes Lions, and its closing line has been quoted ever since: “No wonder our perception of beauty is distorted.”

Why It Matters: Body Image and Self-Esteem

The concern is not that pictures are prettier than life. It is what happens when people, especially teenagers, measure themselves against those pictures day after day.

Surveys reported on Wikipedia's photo manipulation page give a sense of the scale. In one, run by the British retailer New Look, 90% of respondents said they wanted to see a wider variety of body shapes in the media, while only 15% believed magazine covers showed models accurately. A survey by Dove and People magazine found that 80% of women felt insecure when looking at celebrity images.

The American Medical Association has gone on record against heavy digital manipulation in advertising and has called for guidelines with advertisers, citing the unrealistic expectations such images can set for children and teens. Researchers still debate how much retouched images on their own cause self-esteem problems, as opposed to the wider culture around them. But almost nobody argues that an invisible, unlabelled standard helps.

If comparing yourself with images is making you miserable, or affecting how you eat, that is worth taking seriously. Talk to someone you trust and, if it is affecting your health, talk to a doctor.

Laws That Now Require “Retouched” Labels

A handful of countries have moved from debate to rules.

France. Since 1 October 2017, commercial photos used in France in which a model's body shape has been altered, made thinner or fuller, must carry the words photographie retouchée (retouched photograph). The notice has to be clearly visible and separate from the rest of the ad, and fines can reach €37,500. The rule applies to advertising, not to editorial fashion pages. Earlier the same year France also began requiring models to show a medical certificate confirming their general health and that they are not dangerously underweight, as reported by Global Legal Post.

Norway. A 2021 law requires advertisers to label images in which a body has been digitally altered, including paid posts by influencers on social media, with fines for breaking the rule.

United Kingdom. There is no general labelling law, but the Advertising Standards Authority has banned ads it judged misleading because of retouching. One of the best-known cases was a Lancôme ad featuring Julia Roberts, whose skin looked too flawless to be true.

Some brands have also acted on their own. Dove's Campaign for Real Beauty and the American lingerie brand Aerie have promoted unretouched campaigns, and in 2012 Seventeen magazine pledged not to alter girls' body or face shapes after a petition started by a 14-year-old reader, Julia Bluhm, gathered more than 84,000 signatures.

Common Myths About Retouched Photos

“Models just have perfect genes.” Many do have striking features, and that is why they are hired. But the published image usually also involves professional lighting, a make-up artist, a stylist pinning clothes at the back, dozens of discarded frames and then software. The model herself rarely looks like the final picture.

“Everyone knows the pictures are edited, so it does no harm.” Knowing something in theory is not the same as feeling it. Even people who understand retouching can find themselves comparing their skin or stomach with an image that has been engineered to look effortless.

“Filters are harmless fun.” They can be. Phone filters that slim faces or smooth skin, however, bring the same editing into everyday selfies, and Wikipedia notes they have been linked to unrealistic body ideals. Using them knowingly is very different from forgetting what you actually look like.

“Celebrities choose to be edited.” Not always. Kate Winslet publicly objected when GQ made her look far thinner on a cover, and in 2010 Britney Spears agreed to the release of un-airbrushed shots beside the edited ones to show how much had been changed.

A Kinder Way to Look at Magazine Images

None of this means beauty does not matter or that fashion photography is worthless. A great shoot is a piece of craft and can be a joy to look at. The healthier habit is simply to treat it as an illustration rather than a mirror.

A few practical ideas help:

When an image makes you feel worse about yourself, ask what has probably been changed in it.
Follow photographers and brands that publish unretouched work, so your feed shows real skin and real shapes.
Talk about retouching with children and teenagers early, the same way you would explain special effects in a film.
Notice what your body does for you, not only how it looks in one angle and one light.

The point of those old before-and-after clips still stands. The woman on the cover is a real person; the picture of her is a product. You can enjoy the product without measuring yourself against it.

Sources: BuzzFeed Video: Unreal Celebrity Photoshop Transformations; Killing Us Softly 4 trailer (Jean Kilbourne); The Photoshop Effect; Wikipedia: Photograph manipulation; Wikipedia: Jean Kilbourne; Wikipedia: Evolution (advertisement); Global Legal Post: France retouching disclosure rule (2017); video selection originally shared by I Heart Intelligence.

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