Talking Shop: An Exploration into the Ethics of Manipulation

Photoshop is the most commonplace tool for artists in contemporary culture.  Artists are, typically, required to have more than basic photoshop skills in order to submit their artwork (usually photographs) to be published.  In today's culture, some don't even consider the act of manipulating photographs as manipulation.  They view it as a necessary step in the process of publication.  What's interesting to me is how photoshop is now being used as a crutch for perfection.  Photoshop is used as a form of escape.  Marketers want to escape basic human form, so they photoshop their ideas of perfection into these photos.  Did I make the escapism obvious here?  People usually watch movies or read books to escape their mundane, or unsatisfying, lives.  Photoshop is the tool that artists use to create this escapism in photographs.

The video that I chose to watch to write this post was 6 minutes of cringing (at least on my part).  It features a picture of a woman being so intensely manipulated that it leaves the audience wondering if she's the same woman.  What's even more frightening is the realization that photoshop technology has come much farther in the last 9 years.  It's obvious to detect the manipulations in the photo used in the video, especially after the viewer watches every move that the artist makes in the manipulation process.  In real commercials, films, and advertisements, however, these manipulations are not nearly as obvious.  The audience is not able to see the original photograph, and we are under the impression that what we see is the reality that we must conform to.  This is the truly terrifying part of photoshop.  This escapism is used as a crutch that causes more stress and harm to our society than pleasure and "something to aim for."