Dalisca's Comments

I don't really find it as disturbing at all. I'm a graphic designer, and photo manipulation is one of my favorite things to do. I routinely take photographs for the sole purpose of manipulating them. I create art.

It all depends on perspective when looking at stuff like that. Advanced photo manipulation takes skill, and in that regard, it most certainly is an art. Saying that digitally rendered art isn't art is like the singer telling the pianist that he's not a musician because he uses a tool to achieve his result. It's just another instrument to create the work. It's not a perversion, and it's usually not false advertising. For instance, if a woman in an ad for beer, or anything that isn't a cosmetic surgeon's office, has her bust increased for the ad, how is it false advertising? Are they advertising the product, or the boobs?

And how is deliberately removing flaws unethical? Isn't that what most women do before they go off to work in the morning? They put on makeup to cover up blemishes, shade their lips, increase the thickness of their eyelashes, and rose their cheeks. How is it any less ethical for a computer to render this same artificial result? By that logic, perms are unethical, so are girdles, pantyhose, hair gel, shaving, and whitening toothpaste. Burger companies have been using non-computer falsification of their products for YEARS. Have you ever gotten a burger at McDonalds that looks just like it did in the commercial?

Obviously, it's bad to edit out flaws on an item you're selling on ebay. It's also bad form to heavily photoshop products for direct sale, and I absolutely hate obviously photoshopped "before" and "after" weight loss / acne / whatever else ads. But, these are not the most usual uses of photo manipulation.

Don't let a few shady people tarnish the profession of graphic design on the whole. There's a lot more to it than that.