French Deputies Want Labels On Photo-Altered Models

Psychophrenes writes "A number of French deputies are proposing to pass a law requiring all published photos that were modified by means of an image manipulation program to include a statement indicating that 'the photo was altered in order to modify the appearance of a person.' This indication is to be mandatory on all ads, packaging images, political posters and even art photos, and is considered a matter of public health, aimed at fighting anorexia." The related article is in French, but Google Translate does a pretty good job.

Comments

Porn and hamburgers

[sopssa]

It might be a little annoying reading a porn magazine which has the text "'the photo was altered in order to modify the appearance of a person." thrown all over it.

But does this apply to persons only? I hope we'd finally get to know the truth about McDonalds hamburgers. Or can we count them as persons?

Re:Porn and hamburgers

[agentgonzo]

I hope we'd finally get to know the truth about McDonalds hamburgers. Or can we count them as persons?

You can barely count them as food, let alone persons/people.

Re:Porn and hamburgers

[R2.0]

"It might be a little annoying reading a porn magazine which has the text "'the photo was altered in order to modify the appearance of a person." thrown all over it."

I'm reminded of California's cancer "warning label" law. I stayed at a hotel a couple months ago, and there's a sign right at the door - "This building may contained substances known in the State of California to cause cancer." Same at the parking garage.

Label everything, meaning nothing.

Re:Porn and hamburgers

[A coward on a mouse]

Pictures of burgers are representative of the type of burger you can expect, you do not expect the exact burger that is in the photo otherwise they would have to take a lot of photos!

I can only assume that one or more of the following is true:

1. You have never seen a McDonalds hamburger.
2. You have never seen a picture advertising McDonalds hamburgers.
3. You are vision-impaired.

Re:Porn and hamburgers

[Shakrai]

That reminds me of a scene in one of my favorite movies. Michael Douglas takes a fast food joint hostage because the burger doesn't look like the picture ;)

"Turn around. Look at that picture. It's big, it's juicy, it's three inches thick. Now look at this sorry sad squashed thing. What's wrong here? Can anybody tell me? Anybody at all?"

Re:Porn and hamburgers

[Ian Alexander]

They're like websites, except there's no video.

But for how long?

Re:Porn and hamburgers

[Ironica]

Clearly, the problem isn't with the idea, but with the label: it should say which thing contains carcinogens so that you can avoid the problem.

Yes, it should explain that the AIR in the hotel and its parking garage contain chemicals known to the state of California to cause cancer.

All parking garages have the Prop 65 warning, because they're all full of car exhaust. Almost all hotels have them, because they use carcinogenic pesticides.

As it turns out, the labels are accurate, and what you need to avoid is the ENTIRE BUILDING if you don't want to be exposed to carcinogens. OTOH, if you go outside, that's the smoking section...

Re:Porn and hamburgers

[geminidomino]

I didn't even have to click the link to remember Falling Down...

Underrated flick, really...

Re:Porn and hamburgers

[Rob the Bold]

That reminds me of a scene in one of my favorite movies. Michael Douglas takes a fast food joint hostage because the burger doesn't look like the picture ;)

"Turn around. Look at that picture. It's big, it's juicy, it's three inches thick. Now look at this sorry sad squashed thing. What's wrong here? Can anybody tell me? Anybody at all?"

I can agree with you on this topic. Falling Down was a great picture about a guy pushed just a little too far and his vengeful but hopeless Odyssey to get back what he's lost. Definitely a guilty pleasure to watch, sort of like A Shock to the System a rung or two down the social status ladder. It helps that I was looking for work as an engineer when this movie came out just as the cold war wound down. It's sort of The Swimmer, except with RPGs.

Re:Porn and hamburgers

[sopssa]

Porn DEFINITELY needs more truth and less fiction. There are good reasons why this should be the case, not the least of which is how the ability to enjoy one's mate is hampered by artificial and unrealistic "ideals" being portrayed. People are riddled with imperfections.

Actually atleast for me this made me hate the "normal", unrealistic porn which was the only one available as my teenage years from tv. Growth to hate it, and "the girl next door" type porn and the clips on tube sites work a lot better.

Re:Porn and hamburgers

[natehoy]

No, it's with the level of labeling laws. I don't have a solution, though...

Food manufacturers who do not process peanuts or tree nuts are starting to label their product "warning, may contain traces of peanuts or tree nuts", because if it turns out that something goes wrong later on, they're covered. Some people are reportedly so allergic to peanuts that being in the same room with someone who has handled a peanut sometime in the last day emanates enough peanut fumes to kill or significantly harm them.

So if a lineworker at the non-peanut-related-food plant has a BP&J for lunch and burps while operating the machinery, it could potentially contaminate a 1,000 gallon vat of soy milk enough to kill someone. So they put the disclaimer on there to cover themselves.

I won't be surprised to find the same warning sticker on a ladder soon. "Warning: Product may be contaminated with traces of peanuts or tree nuts or phenylalanine or whatever. Wash thoroughly with your choice of strong detergent Warning: Read warning labels on detergent prior to use. Warning: This label may contain offensive content (graphic description of death and/or violence by inanimate objects), parental guidance suggested Warning: This label, while in visual text and braille, does not meet Equal Access requirements because it is not available in audio form, Mexifornia law requires that all salespersons read this and all labels to the consumer. Warning: Overlabeling may have offended some, we're terribly sorry if we hurt your feelings" Then someone with a vegetable dye allergy will sue because they are allergic to the label.

I understand the reason for labeling, and I'm not against it, but manufacturers don't have the refined level of control over their suppliers they once did (if they ever did, frankly), so who's to say that the fried chicken you buy today that is cooked in canola oil might not use peanut oil next week? Better to just pre-print the warning label for every possible risk on ALL of your product so you can say "I did warn you" in case something happens and you get blamed for it.

Which carcinogens are in the hotel? Gawd, who knows? It's a freaking HOTEL with guests coming in and out carrying all manner of toxic crap, and furniture and linens being replaced all the time, and cleaning products being used, and walls being painted with whatever was on special that week at Joe's Paint Emporium, selling snacks that contain peanuts at the snack bar and serving bread that contains wheat and milk that contains dairy products. Change anything from your favored brand of fabric softener to your Ethernet cables, and you potentially introduce a new carcinogen or toxin that's among a list of thousands that'll surely kill SOMEONE.

Lawyer-man sez: Put up a sign that says "WARNING: This building will probably kill you in a violent, bloody, horrible way the moment you enter. Welcome!" and if it does, you've been warned! If it doesn't, hotel exceeds expectations, everyone wins.

Re:Porn and hamburgers

[natehoy]

>>cheese that is actually plastic,

That portion of it, at least, needs to be done to adhere to truth-in-advertising laws. You can't photograph REAL CHEESE unless you use it.

Re:Porn and hamburgers

[raddan]

I throw up violently every time I'm around Beanut Putter & Jelly. Avoid the BP&Js, kids!

Re:Porn and hamburgers

[natehoy]

I think you missed my point.

Food manufacturers who **DO NOT** process peanuts or tree nuts are starting to label their product... (emphasis added).

In other words, at some point as more severe peanut allergies develop or are alleged or simply come to light, every product sold will have that label. Either that, or you'll have the rare company that either takes the risk, or completely and utterly bans peanut/tree nut products from their organization, even employees at home.

When the labeling started, it was "this product contains nuts" and even though I giggled when I saw it on a bag or jar of actual peanuts or peanut butter, it made sense to me.

Then it became "is processed in a plant that processes nuts" or "may contain trace amounts of nuts" which tells me that, even though nuts are not a primary ingredient, there's a chance of contamination. So if a nut allergy is minor, the affected person can eat it with relative safety.

But now we have the really REALLY allergic people who can't enter a room that has had something in it at all. One of the classes at my daughter's school is like that - they have a "life and death" tree nut allergy that is severe, they had to spend a good chunk of the summer cleaning the heck out of the room because even traces of tree nut oil on the coat rack could do her in, and the rest of the class has been asked to eliminate all tree nuts (almonds, etc) from their homes for fear that oil might get on their clothing and survive a washing.

Given that people like that exist, and I'm NOT blaming the little girl - it's an inconvenience the rest of the school just deals with - the food companies now have to basically assume that EVERY product is contaminated with any product that can cause this severity of allergy.

So the label that it "may contain traces" has lost all useful meaning. The chances of it containing traces are unknown, and the amount meant by traces is also unknown.

Label everything, and the label becomes meaningless because you can no longer differentiate between "we also run peanuts through the machine that made your almond butter, so the chances of contamination are relatively high" versus "we hermetically seal our almond butter making machine and all employees are under a death sentence never to own or see a peanut in their lives, but one of them might accidentally eat Pad Thai on vacation and spill some on their shirt then brush up against a machine a week later"

Re:Porn and hamburgers

[dcollins117]

Lesser burgers get reconstituted union bits.

So that's what happened to Jimmy Hoffa...

Aren't ALL photos modified these days?

[davidwr]

Isn't the very act of scanning and printing using a computer a digital modification?

What if the camera's software tweaked the lighting or white-balance as the picture was being taken?

If all photographs are labeled, then the label becomes meaningless.

Re:Aren't ALL photos modified these days?

[polar red]

f all photographs are labeled, then the label becomes meaningless.

not necessarily, i think there are enough people around not knowing that photo's can be tampered with.

Re:Aren't ALL photos modified these days?

[raju1kabir]

I think the point is that you have to put it on if you "modify the appearance of a person". I would doubt that modifying the white-balance would count as this, but agree that it will be hard to choose an arbitrary point to draw the line of what does and what does not need the disclaimer.

More like impossible, if you want it to be meaningful.

If you've spent some time working with photographers, you know that moving a light just a tiny bit can dramatically change how much someone appears to weigh. Changing the colour of light - or even the colour of other nearby objects that reflect some light - can change someone from vibrant to sickly. And don't even get started on makeup. Labeling only an arbitrary set of electronic manipulations is at best a joke. It'll be great news for touch-up artists who still have their old-school airbrushes, though.

Re:Aren't ALL photos modified these days?

[Fantom42]

Those kinds of modifications shouldn't and likely wouldn't be covered by the provision. There is already a pretty well-established metric by which photojournalists follow. It can be summed up in this statement, "Editing should maintain the integrity of the photographic images' content and context. Do not manipulate images or add or alter sound in any way that can mislead viewers or misrepresent subjects."

Cropping and white balance adjustments are considered ok. Adjusting lighting, posing, or other things are not considered ok, although most people consider it ok as long as the context is obvious (e.g., a portrait for someone's profile or similar). Adjusting the face, removing/adding hair is not ok.

Re:Aren't ALL photos modified these days?

[qoncept]

Isn't the very act of scanning and printing using a computer a digital modification?

Yes, they are. And they pretty much always have been. All photos are pretty much artifact to a greater or lesser degree.

No, it's not. Digitization and digital modification aren't the same thing. The comment about white balance and such done by the digital camera itself is more questionable, but I would think common sense would cover that.

Models have always been shot with artificial make-up, hair, fans blowing their hair and carefully controlled lighting to create an artificial image of the person.

Controlled, optimized, sure. But that is a real image of that person. If you're dropping chemicals on your film to cover a splotch on someone's face, that's altered, but slapping some baby oil on Arnie and having him flex or having Paris Hilton bend over and spread is just putting them in the position that makes them look best, not modification.

Re:Aren't ALL photos modified these days?

[Anonymusing]

Reminds me of the Evolution video from Dove. Apparently advertising does affect some girls, at least some of the time.

Re:Aren't ALL photos modified these days?

[cnvandev]

You're drawing the line, there, though? You're saying that the line which makes the picture "artificial" is when Photoshop's come in? Personally, I don't think most people spend most of their time oiled up, bent over and spread, so a picture of someone in a contrived pose with specific lighting and makeup is just as artificial as a person airbrushed. The trick isn't having a label telling people that "these pictures have been modified", it's to make it general knowledge that all magazine photos are in some way modified, just like how most semi-intelligent people realize that food pictures are mostly fake.

Re:Aren't ALL photos modified these days?

[YouWantFriesWithThat]

I don't think most people spend most of their time oiled up, bent over and spread

he clearly stated that it was paris hilton

Re:Aren't ALL photos modified these days?

[davidwr]

Maybe the label needs to be more specific and say something like "People in photo are larger than they appear".

Imagine seeing that in an ad on a 2-story billboard.

Re:Aren't ALL photos modified these days?

[!coward]

I'm kinda torn on this one, actually. I get your point and I do agree with it, to some extent. This is clearly another "Think of the children" moment, but I can't say I don't see where this is coming from, nor that I disagree with the professed intention.

It's the whole herd mentality/behaviour thing, far more than it is about peer pressure. This isn't about some kids pressuring another to be more like them. This is mainly about a stupid top-down mentality that has pervaded our society for quite some time (hundreds, thousands of years?), and reached critical mass when the fashion industry assumed the prominent role it has had for the past decades.

The fashion industry is, just like any other industry/business, about making money. A good way to achieve this is by adapting other industries "planned obsolescence" model, which they've refined to an art form (literally) -- every single year there is a Spring/Summer collection and a Autumn/Winter collection, and every single year the "tendencies" shift. From colors, to materials, to styles (cuff/sleeve length, etc, etc), to accessories..

Forget about the sheer wastefulness of the process (both in terms of money spent -- or thrown away -- as well as resources consumed .. the creed is: this year's stuff is "in", last year's stuff is "out"), this is nothing short of crowd control. And it's not just for the upper-class either, there's stratification in all levels of society. You're either "in fashion" or you're "so last Tuesday", and nobody likes being the latter.

For some reason, women seem to be more prone to this than men. Heck, men's fashion even seems to shift less season to season than women's, but it still happens.

Now add to this all the artificial layers put on by TV shows (even those conceived specifically for kids -- in some cases, these are actually the worse [it may be old-fashioned of me, but there's nothing I find more disgusting than shows that broadcast the notion that a 9/10/12 year old girl needs/*should* wear blush and eyeliner and mascara and lip gloss and all that crap, that she should basically be a little *woman*, as opposed to just enjoy her child/teenagehood]), movies, music (heck, even modern "fuck the system" genres are populated by make-up-laden metrossexual posers) -- there's just no letting up.

And while adults are free to do whatever they choose, it's getting tougher for kids -- to the point where many don't even "grow up" until much later in their lives, despite *looking* like adults and claiming the perks that go with it -- which in turn either leads to a tendency to take bone-headed risks (12 year olds having sex?! 13 year olds becoming parents themselves?!), a tendency to crack under that pressure (the only ones gaining here are shrinks/therapists), or to be shunned as anti-social.

Hell, High School has always been hard on kids. I'm guessing most people here can relate to the stigmas associated with that period. But it's really getting insane.

It's probably too late to put the geenie back in the bottle, and this initiative won't amount to much (if anything at all), but it *is* sad that we, as a species, are indeed so sheep-like that, for the sole benefit of a few prima donnas and their bankers, we've let it come to this, where the proclaimed ideal for a beautiful/desirable women is just short of a terminal coke/heroin addict, covered in animal fat, artificial pigments and glittery stuff, wearing fake eyelashes, hair extensions and standing in the oh-so-healthy, oh-so-natural, 6" stiletto heels.

Re:Aren't ALL photos modified these days?

[Just Some Guy]

If you've spent some time working with photographers, you know that moving a light just a tiny bit can dramatically change how much someone appears to weigh. Changing the colour of light - or even the colour of other nearby objects that reflect some light - can change someone from vibrant to sickly. And don't even get started on makeup.

Those are bad examples, in that even if the result is a statistically improbable image, it is provably possible for that model to take on that appearance under those specific conditions. That's not in the same league image manipulations that give results that the model could never achieve without alterations to their anatomy.

Re:Aren't ALL photos modified these days?

[Grim Beefer]

Digital manipulation using Photoshop and the like is nothing like the studio effects you mention.

Whether you want to admit it or not, you're talking about environmental changes to the subject - lighting, color cast, exposure, etc.., not physical changes. You're not grasping the difference between an illusion, such as painting a room white to make it appear larger, and physical manipulation, such as moving your walls five feet out to increase your square footage.

Everyone expects that a good photographer will capture their subjects in the best light and color, along with manipulating the subject matter to get the best possible facial expression, etc. These are the basic elements of portrait photography, and have been for a long time. It's still a far cry from going in and giving your subject a digital nose job, increasing their bust size, slimming their waist and thighs, and stretching their torso. No amount of bounce lighting is going to achieve those things.

Soylent Green

[ATestR]

But does this apply to persons only? I hope we'd finally get to know the truth about McDonalds hamburgers. Or can we count them as persons?

Well, maybe they were at one time...

What about analog retouching?

[davidwr]

Assuming the law only applies to "significant" digital retouching, will we see a resurgence in non-digital techniques to make people look skinnier on film?

After all, we had skinny people in magazines long before the 1990s.

This ad paid for by...

[reebmmm]

Let's assume that this was even effective for the purpose. The text would become so omni-present to basically become meaningless. In one sense or another, every ad will somehow be "manipulated." Even if that means merely cropping the person's body to only have the head, blurring people in the background, etc.

The other issue is who is going to enforce that right? France? An individual on behalf of France? A private right of enforcement? In any event, a company will put that notice on any ad simply to avoid being sued/fined.

Re:This ad paid for by...

[MrMr]

is who is going to enforce that right?
It's a proposal in french parliament, so we could guess.

The obligatory warnings and disclaimers are printed across all kinds of products like cigarettes and electrical appliances in the US, why should ads be exempt?

Re:This ad paid for by...

[Lord Ender]

You sound like a programmer who is completely ignorant of how legal systems work.

Laws aren't written like "if photo.is_manipulated() then display_disclaimer() end". They actually use words and sentences to express the intent of the law in a reasonable way. Cropping will not be considered manipulation; airbrushing will. Furthermore, even "gray area" can be part of law, thanks to an amazing technology called "courts."

Basically, your objections are complete nonsense.

Re:This ad paid for by...

[pla]

You sound like a programmer who is completely ignorant of how legal systems work.

He sounds like a programmer who has seen how the legal system works.


Laws aren't written like "if photo.is_manipulated() then display_disclaimer() end".

Nope, you have that 100% true - Because that would give a nice, easy, objective test of guilt.

Instead, the law will describe 200 different varieties of manipulation, which the advertising industry will neatly get around ("Well, it didn't explicitly ban radioactive waste to give the subject a healthy glow"), while semi-pro photographers fear for their freedom if they dare to sell a decent shot to a local paper. It will include zero funding for enforcement but allow police to charge high-end cameras with a crime and thereby keep them. It will accidentally outlaw Gimp (but of course they'd never enforce that, wink-wink-nudge-nudge) but not Photoshop because of some obscure detail in their JPEG compression implementations. And finally, just for good measure, it will provide 50 billion dollars to build stronger levees in Nevada (or the French equivalent, I suppose).

And I wish I meant this as hyperbole...

Why stop there?

[TheBilgeRat]

Why not make it mandatory to label surgically altered models also? I want to know the boobies I look at are all natural.

Re:Why stop there?

[Chrisq]

Why stop there. What about hair-colour and makeup. Come to think of it what about clothes.

Re:Why stop there?

[dontmakemethink]

Who cares if models' boobs are real or not? You'll never touch them!

Ogle, wank, rinse, repeat. The rest is academic.

Re:Why stop there?

[gaspar ilom]

Why not first create a legally-binding certification that declares that a photo was not manipulated? Similar to the way we have "organic" food or "cage-free" eggs? Such a system could be voluntary.

The (possibly multiple) certifications would be rigorously defined, along the lines of:

• "This photo was not altered in a post production process"
• "This model was not surgically enhanced"
• "This model has her original hair color"
• "This model is not wearing makeup"

...All we need now are some short, catchy labels to brand & market these concepts.

McSoylent Green

[davidwr]

Two all-beef Patties, Special Scott and Lester Cheese picking bunions on a Sesame Street Bus?

Re:Girlfriend

[MrMr]

You mean removing the antlers?
We knew that.

Yes! Also they should ban makeup!

[Anonymous Coward]

Why not? That creates a false impression that can't be healthy for young girls, right? They already ban deodorant and shaving under the arms, so...

Re:Girlfriend

[Chrisq]

He doesn't mind that, its the airbrushing out of her penis that bothers him.

it's not men driving this phenomenon

[circletimessquare]

men's magazines are full of pictures of... women

women's magazines are full of pictures of... women

except the women in men's magazines are usually well-proportioned in the t&a department

meanwhile, the women in women's magazines are pure heroin chic: ribs showing, no curves. yuck

i really don't know why, but for some reason the female standard of feminine beauty (as opposed to the male standard of feminine beauty) is starvation porn. women for some reason or another think the ideal female form is that of a prebuscent boy

as for the magazine industry "creating" or "feeding" this phenomenon: no, if it didn't appeal to women on some level, the magazine wouldn't sell. media and consumer exist in co-dependency. media follows what its audience wants, for obvious reasons: $. (as an aside, this simple truth should dispel the whole idea of media-created trends on a whole number of other issues that some people believe: its the audience, not the media, stop blaming the media)

if you want to know what men want and like in the female form, it is well-established fact, biological fact, not cultural, that men prefer women who are heck of a lot more well-fed than what women see as an ideal

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venus_of_Willendorf

the whole scary skinny trend in high fashion is created by, and perpetuated by, and invested in, by women, not men. yes, there are few strange men who actually prefer their women to be unfeminine stick figures, but these men are not the norm

so girls, listen up, from the male perspective of beauty: go fix yourself a sammich. its your fellow women that want you to waste away, and on some archaic level we don't understand, its your own strange female mind that wants you to be so skinny, not us men

Re:it's not men driving this phenomenon

[operagost]

the whole scary skinny trend in high fashion is created by, and perpetuated by, and invested in, by women, not men.

Well, maybe gay men. They do dominate the world of high fashion.

Re:it's not men driving this phenomenon

[Boronx]

It's the 2D nature of the beast. Women don't want to be skinny, they want to look good. But a 2D projection of a normal person looks like a featureless block of fat. Therefore, hoop skirts are out, and tiny butts are in.

Re:it's not men driving this phenomenon

[lehphyro]

And what makes you think women wants to know what men like? They compete between themselves to see which one is the most beautiful, they dont need to make any efforts to appeal to men.

Re:it's not men driving this phenomenon

[misexistentialist]

Adolescent girls are generally skinny, and that is what women want to look like--young. Men might find the MILF form attractive, but for a woman it means the end of the line. Women also like clothes, and I believe it's easier to find ones that look good when you are skinny.

Re:it's not men driving this phenomenon

[Locke2005]

I was thinking about this the other day... biologically, men are attracted to women that are healthy and capable of bearing, nursing, and bringing up children. We're programmed that way, in the interest of propagation of the species. It is not clear to me why any male would want to hook up with a girl that looks unhealthy, e.g. a "Heroin-chic" model, a pale, fragile goth, or a crack whore look should be a clear signal "not a good place to invest the future of your genetics". Of course, men are also programmed to broadcast their genetic material as widely as possible, but I cannot image a sickly looking woman would be their first choice.

Personally, I am attracted to toned muscles, the suggestion of a curve between waist and hips, and "average" C-cup breasts (past a certain point, bigger is not better!) In fact, I believe the real standard of beauty is symmetry combined with really average features and proportions. This is why mixtures of different races are frequently very sexy, while inbred populations (which accentuate certain features) are not.

Re:it's not men driving this phenomenon

[residieu]

It's easier to find clothes that look good when you're skinny, because the designers design clothes for skinny people. Then they extrapolate some of those clothes out for larger sizes, where they don't look as good.

Re:it's not men driving this phenomenon

[dontmakemethink]

except the women in men's magazines are usually well-proportioned in the t&a department [...] the whole scary skinny trend in high fashion is created by, and perpetuated by, and invested in, by women, not men.

I hope you're not implying that Playboy models don't diet and exercise religiously, augment themselves surgically, and still their pictures are photoshopped. Women see men respond more to anything resembling that sculpted T&A form, but to women that look is slutty. Playboy minus slutty == stick figure. Chubby is not an option. There are no plump female celebrities that are not routinely ridiculed in everything from comedy shows to tabloids, and virtually always by men.

Re:it's not men driving this phenomenon

[firewrought]

Men prefer women who are heck of a lot more well-fed than what women see as an ideal http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venus_of_Willendorf

The last paper I saw on it was that the Venus of Willendorf was most likely the result of a female trying to depict herself while pregnant. The artist gazed down at her own torso/belly and transferred the skewed proportions to the statue. They photographed both a model and the statue from this perspective to show the similarities. (I would hunt for the link, but it's probably NSFW given the use of nude model.)

Would be a great move

[bossanovalithium]

Imagine the kudos that would come about and the prized badge that a few pics without this tag would hold. It's time people were no longer brainwashed into this aspiration for what is clearly not possible without a few layers of photoshop. We'd all be a bit nicer to each other and ourselves if we started to accept the fact that no-one is perfect.

Simple

[whisper_jeff]

As a graphic designer, allow me to simplify things - EVERY image published has been altered with photo manipulation software. Whether it's as minimal as colour adjustment or removing some insignificant blemishes from the image to outright "enhancing" of the image. EVERY image has been manipulated. Trust me.

Awesome!

[Fantastic Lad]

Right-on, France!

I don't know if such a law can even work, but just the fact that this kind of thing is even being considered is really cool.

My fellow male geeks don't truly get what girls go through and what a mind-job it does on them. But there IS one example which might resonate. . .

Remember when all those new Star Wars toys came out, and all the characters you once identified with were now PuMpEd up? I know it affected me in a negative way, and I thought I was fairly impervious to such things. I found it surprising and illuminating.

Advertising and media stereotypes fuck you in the head. Remember: Body hair was at one time not considered ugly on a woman. It wasn't until quite recently that this changed when a razor-blade company decided to start equating dirtiness with body-hair on women. Doubled the number of customers for its product. This was only a century or two ago.

Fuck advertising. Rock-on France! If it wasn't for Sarkozy and the creep of evil, France would be the true hero of the world.

-FL

Re:Awesome!

[jeffasselin]

Heck, how about diamonds? They're not that rare or valuable (compared to say emeralds or rubies), but DeBeers made a very successful campaign at the turn of the last century to create a market for their product by convincing women (and men) that diamonds were the only jewel worth giving as a betrothal ring.

Heck, until Queen Victoria had a lavish, highly-publicized wedding, they were simple affairs usually involving only the immediate family and simple ceremonies often taking place at the home of the couple.

Re:Awesome!

[Anonymous Coward]

Right-on, France!

I don't know if such a law can even work, but just the fact that this kind of thing is even being considered is really cool.

My fellow male geeks don't truly get what girls go through and what a mind-job it does on them. But there IS one example which might resonate. . .

Remember when all those new Star Wars toys came out, and all the characters you once identified with were now PuMpEd up? I know it affected me in a negative way, and I thought I was fairly impervious to such things. I found it surprising and illuminating.

Advertising and media stereotypes fuck you in the head. Remember: Body hair was at one time not considered ugly on a woman. It wasn't until quite recently that this changed when a razor-blade company decided to start equating dirtiness with body-hair on women. Doubled the number of customers for its product. This was only a century or two ago.

Fuck advertising. Rock-on France! If it wasn't for Sarkozy and the creep of evil, France would be the true hero of the world.

-FL

Hey, Why should I care about women's problems? I have been harassed, ostracised, and just plainly humiliated by women most of my life. First because of my weight, after that because of my hobbies, after that because of my Msc in applied mathematics. I just don't give a damn about women's problems anymore. Let one female come forward and tell her sisters that I deserve some basic human respect, then I will join the fight. Until then, women reap the fruits of what they have sown. Regarding the question of female body hair. I have personally witnessed young women bragging to their female friends about dumping boyfriends, because the men in question had hair growing on their toes.

To sum it up. There is absolutely no sympathy for any female appearance anxieties coming from me, until one single female actually steps up and tells her sisters that I have the right to be respected as a basic human being.

Re:Awesome!

[Fantastic Lad]

Awwww. Pooooooooooor you.

The anger cycle, your attitudes, beliefs and all the other crap in your mental machine will put you squarely in the middle of exactly the kind of people which best match that head-space. If you are a shitty person, you'll be surrounded by the same. If you believe that the world is full of shitty people, you'll prove that to yourself every day.

Water rises, (or sinks) to its own level.

Learn that, and you're basically a Jedi. Until then, you're a chump.

Good luck finding your way out of that maze. It's one of the tougher ones, but absolutely required if you want to advance beyond "Proto-Human".

-FL

Unintended consequeces

[dbIII]

Actually in Australia for many years Playboy and Penthouse published nude photos with women's genitals airbrushed smooth to look like a Barbie doll. That created a generation of women that think something is wrong with them and that they should have bits cut off.

Re:Unintended consequeces

[Anonymous Coward]

I mean, Ken just kinda had this lump, but that didn't frighten me into worrying about the strange dangly thing hanging between my legs, much less make me want to cut it off...!

It did for me. Many times a day I used to pull it hoping it would fall off.

Re:Unintended consequeces

[clone53421]

In other news, Japanese women worry that their man might not find them sexy because they fear their pubic regions aren't pixelated enough.

Really, I find this kind of hard to believe. Can you link me to something to back up this story?

Re:It'd be really annoying..

[ColdWetDog]

It would have to be enacted first.

Man, the French can't do anything right these days, can they?

Is there where Democracy leads?

[MindlessAutomata]

Seems like the longer our democracies go on, the more bureaucratic and insane they start becoming. This isn't "fascism," this isn't the will of the people being usurped, this is the system working as it should, and these are the results.

It seems to me that democracy results in a sort of populistic legalism where you have thousands and thousands of little laws trying to create the perfect existence. But you can't make a perfect existence by putting strings on everyone and letting everyone else play everyone else's puppet master. Nobody can know even a fraction of the laws, yet break one that gets enforced and you're fined or jailed or forced into temporary involuntary servitude. Democracy may be freedom of the masses, but it's not freedom of the individual. The machine may be free to operate but the cogs are not free to turn. Is that really how you envision a free society?

And once we start trying to plug every possible hole that could cause mental illness or otherwise undesirable behavior we become an even more nightmarish version of Brave New World, where instead of people being conditioned by birth the governments ("the people") try to heavily restrict and control all social influences because of the undesirability of emotional problems in society, the end result being an overall loss of individual autonomy and in particular freedom of speech.

Anorexia as a role model is the problem...

[yogibaer]

not Photoshop. As long as fashion models have to be under normal weight to be accepted for the top fashion shows and magazines, young girls will follow this role model and that is the real problem, not photoshopping bad skin. If you type "anorexic models" into any search engine you find a lot of gruesome stories about girls who literally starved themselves to death on the job. Alternatively: force yourself to watch "Fashion TV" for an hour. That's not a new problem ("Twiggy" turned 60 last week, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twiggy) and not one likely to be changed by any law.

Absurd

[noidentity]

"Disclaimer:

1) This two-dimenstional photo is an alteration of the model depicted. The actual model exists in three dimensions and has volume, unlike this photo. Do not attempt to reduce your volume to zero, as it might affect your health.

2) The photo of this model is only 7 inches tall. The actual model is over 5 feet tall. Do not attempt to reduce your height to only 7 inches, as it might affect your health."

Re:Absurd

[Tablizer]

This two-dimensional photo is an alteration of the model depicted. The actual model exists in three dimensions and has volume, unlike this photo.

Ex-wife needs no such sticker.
   

Re:white balance and racial implications

[D'Sphitz]

Erik Paulsen made a attack ad where he darkened the skin of Ashwin Madia, apparently to make sure nobody mistook him for a white person.

That sounds cool !

[7 digits]

I'd love to see that mention on Paris-Match pictures of Sarkozy...

For the uninformed, Paris-Match magazine published an altered picture of Nicolas "cocainomaniac chihuahua" Sarkozy.

Ethics of photomanipulation

[PhxBlue]

As a photojournalist, I think it would be interesting to see just how many photos in fashion magazines are airbrushed or otherwise manipulated after the fact. In terms of ethics, I was taught and have come to believe that there are a few "ethical" manipulations -- cropping, limited use of burning and dodging, etc., that you can use while still maintaining the integrity of the original photo. But once you change what was actually there -- whether it's airbrushing the blemishes off a model's face or using the clone stamp tool to take a few pounds off her hips -- you've crossed into photomanipulation. And it's only fair for people to know when this is taking place, IMO.

Re:It'd be really annoying..

[Anonymusing]

link to that Dove commercial.

Food styling

[spun]

But does this apply to persons only? I hope we'd finally get to know the truth about McDonalds hamburgers. Or can we count them as persons?

Pictures of burgers are representative of the type of burger you can expect, you do not expect the exact burger that is in the photo otherwise they would have to take a lot of photos!

Good for the French anyway, this can only be a positive thing.

Food styling and photography is at least as complicated as fashion styling and photography. People at least do not dry up, wilt, sag, and turn funny colors over the course of an hour under the lights. Burgers are one of the harder foods to style and photograph. The burgers you see in photographs are not even edible. For some interesting tricks of the food stylist/photographer's trade, see here: http://www.choice.com.au/viewArticle.aspx?id=102996&catId=100406&tid=100008&p=1&title=Food+styling.

Re:Food styling

[spun]

Not just ordinarily inedible. Burgers in photographs aren't cooked all the way, instead being browned with a blowtorch. They have cardboard supports inside them, extra sesame seeds glued on with hot glue, glycerin and hairspray added for that extra juicy look, and the whole thing is held together with pins. Yum.

Re:Food styling

[MiscellaneousFiles]

Those pretty Big Macs don't even exist!

Re:Food styling

[Runaway1956]

"People at least do not dry up, wilt, sag, and turn funny colors"

It takes more than an hour, youngster, but your turn is coming. Married, yet? You have so much to look forward to!

reverse the law?

[tijnbraun]

It might be easier to reverse this law:

Any photo that has not been manipulated should indicate that 'the photo was not altered in order to modify the appearance of a person.'

Might be a whole lot cheaper.

This is so important ...

[Rambo Tribble]

... since the anorexia epidemic is so much greater a problem than the obesity one.

Re:This is so important ...

[Rambo Tribble]

I'm glad you're possessed of such a keen sense of sarcasm along with your finely honed sense of priorities. Apparently, however, you only appreciate sarcasm when it's your own.

Re:white balance and racial implications

[Quothz]

I remember at least one instance in the last 20 years where an American politician used a picture of his opponent and the ad mad the opponent look much lighter or darker than he looks in person in normal room light. There was some backlash charging the campaign with race-baiting or something like that.

You may be thinking of the Time O.J. cover, although that of course wasn't a political campaign. Time darkened O.J.'s mug shot to make him look darker, unshaven, and generally more sinister.

OK in what context?

[davidwr]

In journalism, you are correct.

In art, advertisement, and entertainment, photographers are far less conservative.

Re:digitization vs. digital modification

[qoncept]

Hence, common sense. Take 100 pictures with 100 different regular ol' cameras and you'll have 100 slightly different pictures. Use Photoshop to pinch in someone's waist in one of those and you'll have one photo that is relevent to the topic.

Cosmetic ad disclaimers already in UK...

[chrb]

It's not clear that a porn magazine would be covered by this law, but adverts would be. We already have disclaimers in the UK for cosmetics adverts. They are actually quite informative. I saw one recently advertising some kind of shampoo and stating that it "enhanced vibrancy" and the models had ultra-bouncy curled hair, meanwhile the disclaimer at the bottom of the screen actually said something like "note: models did not use the advertised product. Models hair was formed by makeup expert." That kind of information makes a huge difference in how people perceive the advert. I've seen similar disclaimers for skin cream adverts, while the voiceover is saying how amazing the product is, the disclaimer says something like "In independent tests 28% of test subjects reported some improvement"; so now we know that 72% of test subjects reported no improvement with this product! I think the honesty in advertising laws are great, certainly a lot more amusing than the adverts we used to have a few years ago.

Most people have no idea how how much touching up goes on. In the documentary Bigger, Faster, Stronger a photographer from the "protein shake" market is interviewed. He states that he has actually done photoshoots of the "before" (weakling) and "after" (muscleman) photos in the same day. That's right, what the advertiser claims to be some amazing muscle growth effect is actually just photo manipulation. It's completely dishonest. Oh, and the models admit using steroids. They say that if people are stupid enough to actually believe the photos, then they deserve to lose their money. Given the choice between this blatant corruption, where the uneducated and trusting are lied to and exploited for financial gain, and a regulated market, I'll choose regulation.

Re:Cosmetic ad disclaimers already in UK...

[psithurism]

I switched my workout routine from all those hard hours in the gym to 20 minutes with photoshop, and my online friends are simply amazed at the results.

Re:Yes, also add..

[clam666]

Natural red-heads are clinically insane, whereas fake redheads are just easy.