Ad on HP kind of bothers me

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   melbelposted 12 years ago

   It's a photo editing software ad and I've been seeing it for a few weeks now. Anyway, this ad portrays what I think is a pretty girl and then does this "fabulous" editing to make her look airbrushed and fake. This fakey airbrush thing is the work of this great software... supposedly making this girl prettier. I think she looks prettier before the airbrush thing. The way the ad appears, it's as if I'm supposed to think "Oh this girl is.. meh... oh wow... airbrush, she looks fab!" Maybe it's just me, but I find this ad really offensive. Like I need layers of caked on makeup and an airbrush setting on my photo editing software to make me remotely attractive.
   
   
   The before picture of the "hideous beast" that apparently needs a ton of work. Eww... this girl has brown eyes... how disgusting. She could NEVER get a boyfriend!
   
   
   Ah, fakeness, now she's tolerable, blue-eyed beauty.

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      brittanytoddposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      I totally agree, Mel.  I don't like the message and truly believe that the first photo was more believable and "prettier" (from my perspective) as she doesn't look like a porcelain doll.  I'll be sure to block this company on my adsense account.  Thanks for sharing and pointing out just how prevalent the impossible beauty standards that our media promotes really is.

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      cloverleaffarmposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      It doesn't look like the same girl. Sister maybe. It is horrible to market something that gives the message that natural is ugly.

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         Pearldiverposted 11 years agoin reply to this

         I totally agree... and as such have boy-coated everything that I see marketed in the same manner!
         
         Could you imagine my surprise when I got 'mooned' by 14,000 pairs of augmented boobs yesterday when I opened my emails!!
         
         I was even more taken aback today in my mail, when I got 258,000 fake teeth and veneers smiles, 550 plastic nose jobs and a male ego enlargement 'kit' all from an agency offering weekly specials on other things like botox treatment and bikini line trimmers.... Amazing!!! 
         
         Is there Nothing natural today??

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      Jesus was a hippyposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      Some girls are suckers and will pay for this. Of course someone will fill in that niche in the market.

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   JKennyposted 12 years ago

   I'll be blocking this company too, as I don't agree with any airbrushing, so many women's self esteem suffers because they see loads of pictures of 'unblemished' women. Modern society is too obsessed with perfection, what we need to understand is that imperfection is not only normal, but healthy. Natural beauty will always shine through against plastic beauty.

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      cloverleaffarmposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      How do you block companies?

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   freecampingaussieposted 12 years ago

   I don't get it , the girl in the first picture looks amazing....

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   Jane Bovaryposted 12 years ago

   You're so right Mel, these ads are on the nose. I've seen the touch-up pics before but never noticed one with an eye colour change. The clear implication is that blue eyes are better than brown.
   
   What a flawed world we live in and I'm not talking under-eye bags. Is the ultimate aim to merge everything into bland...?That ad speaks volumes about the kind of culture we're living in.

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   Shanna11posted 12 years ago

   As I was reading your post and saw the first picture, I thought that WAS the edited picture. That ad is ridiculous... photoshopping brown eyes away? I love brown eyes (even though I have blue eyes myself). I think she looked gorgeous before.

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   Aficionadaposted 12 years ago

   I agree with others here - except that it's hard for me to see the eye color change.  I totally dislike the caked-on makeup look, the change in the jawline, and the erasing of the smile lines. Yechhhh. Why does anyone anywhere think that the look of Play-Doh on the face is prettier than healthy young human skin? (wish I still had mine!)
   
   It reminds me of a conversation I had about the totally weird-looking Kim Kardashian.  I honestly think she looks like an alien.  But then I saw a photo of her without makeup, and I realized that she actually is fairly attractive, after all.  If only she didn't feel the need to hide whatever beauty she has.
   
   Good for you, melbel, for pointing out these ads!

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   psycheskinnerposted 12 years ago

   It a product for a certain purpose. We may object to it, but exaggerated photos sell better.  It's like SEO for pictures.

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   Eric Newlandposted 12 years ago

   It looks like the software is crap anyway. The "Katniss Everdeen lookalike" algorithm gave her the wrong hair color.

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      Eric Newlandposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      
      
      
      I thought I was half kidding but now I'm not so sure.

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   Lisa HWposted 12 years ago

   Based on what I've seen of the the ad (which is here), (and I'm probably inviting some virtual rotten-egg throwing here), I think people are seeing insults/offense into something that isn't necessarily there.    This thread, to me, highlights an anger and a cynicism that's out there today and that, to me, is more cause for concern than what looks to me like an innocent ad for photography software.  Insult/offense are often in the eye of the beholder.
   
   Of course, whether or not the company is actually "sending the message" that the girl in the un-polished photo is inadequate or not may not even be the problem with the ad.  The ad may be that too many people will apparently read into it messages the company doesn't particularly intend to send.  Since I come from a less angry, less cynical, less Internet-/media-influenced/focused "era" I find it an interesting social observation that people are apparently as bothered by this ad as some are.  Since I'm apparently the oddball here (as I so often am anywhere  ), here's what I see as "the other side of things" (and maybe seeds for a variety of Hub subjects for anyone looking for any):
   
   
   As I said, I think a whole lot is being read into (even "imagined onto") this company and its ad that isn't necessarily there.  I wouldn't block them.  Since so far I seem to be the only one not to see the ad as offensive, here's my "sort-of" defense of the company (and that defense is that I don't they're suggesting at all that the girl, herself, is unattractive, or that she shouldn't walk down the street if she can't wear an airbrushed mask over her face):  When I saw this thread it struck me that it's interesting that people who are  younger than I am see this ad so differently as I do.  One thing may be that I grew up before "fake" was quite the big thing it is today, so I'm not hyper-sensitive to something like this photography software turning a picture "more painting-like".  Another thing could be that I've gone the route of having all the usual professional photos taken myself (the grad photos, wedding photos, baby photos times three, etc.); so it doesn't seem like a big deal to me that someone offers software to change the look of a photo into something more "finished". Also, I'm not in the business of marketing products, so it isn't my natural tendency to see the girl as a product.  I see the the photography as the product.
   
   I hadn't seen the ad before seeing this, and I'm not necessarily suggesting the points made here aren't valid; but then again, when I saw it I didn't see any big deal about it.  Not saying anyone's reaction is "over-reacting", but then again I do wonder if there's maybe some cultural hyper-sensitivity going on here, not really as the direct result of seeing an ad for "portrait" software but as a result of living in a society that is actually is so guilty of encouraging fakeness.  I dislike the dislike-of-natural that young girls grow up with today.  I just don't see the ad being about the girl in the picture.  It's about the photography.
   
   Professional photographers have for ages been offering a "portrait" or "oil" option (even on things like high-school grad pictures).  It hasn't necessarily meant anyone was suggesting the subject wasn't pretty enough.  The idea (at least as a lot of us have taken it) has always been to improve the picture - not the subject.  A lot of people like the option of being able to give "Grandma" another nice, professionally done, "portrait" for the family collection when they otherwise wouldn't have been able to get a real oil portrait done.  Photographers have usually asked if people want something like a blemish removed from their wedding or grad photos, so - yes - to that extent they're offering to improve the subject.  Not everyone wants a pimple in their wedding photo though.     I don't see it as an insult to the subject. 
   
   So, some people will look at the ad from a product-selling standpoint and see the girl in the ad as the product being sold, rather than the photography software being demonstrated.  Others will carry over the bad messages being sent to young girls today and see this as yet one more example of it.  Is there anything stated in the ad or by the company that actually says anything about making the girl prettier?  Or, might the company just be showing that its software is supposed to make a photograph look more "oil-painting-er"? (whether it's a bowl of fruit or a human being).
   
   I don't know...  Whenever a professional photographer has me if I'd want the "portrait" (or "oil", or whatever they call it) option, I haven't taken it as a big insult.  (Maybe I should have  ).  I've just always seen it as "here's a reasonably cheap way to give your mother an oil-painting kind of thing to add with the rest of portraits.    Well, here's where my simple mind goes anyway:  The image of pretty girls is used to sell all kinds of stuff.  I see the fact that this girl's face is used in the ad as an indication that she's seen and presented as a pretty girl (not one who "can't get a date")"..and here's the different finish our software."  I just don't think the company has sent any terrible messages to anyone. I don't even see that they changed her eye color (maybe that's just me too).  It looks to me as if they lightened the bad lighting of the original photo; and as a result, her eye color appears lighter in the second picture.  (I really don't see any "clear implication that blue is better".  Blue eyes look darker in bad lighting, and the first picture has bad lighting around the eyes, particularly one eye.)
   
   Photography is its own field.  What anyone chooses to do with it (or with special effects), or how they choose to use it (as in the fashion industry) is a separate issue.  (Maybe the company could have avoided misinterpretation of messages if they'd found a really ugly girl and showed that she wasn't much better, even though the photo was, after the "air-brushing"     ). 
   
   (In any case, I think there's way too much anger out there over stuff that doesn't really warrant it much of the time.  That's what people need to be concerned with and address.    )

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      Chris Hughposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      I'm with you. It's just an ad.
      
      She's a little funny looking in the second one. I get tired of seeing fake,, artificial faces, ( through Photoshop or dermal fillers ) but it doesn't bother me that much. It's just confusing. I don't share the anger, but I don't watch TV, so I'm getting less exposure.
      
      OTOH, I love well done work and have even hubbed on it.

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    paradigmsearchposted 12 years ago

    Somewhat off-topic, but I can't help myself.
    
    Of all the well-known websites, Yahoo has been and continues to have the most obnoxious ads of all time.
    
    These days it's that head that keeps moving back and forth. And that woman that keeps moving her butt back and forth. Both make me want to puke every time I use Yahoo's email. I can't take it any more, and have begun changing my contact email addresses everywhere so that I can dump the yahoo email accounts.
    
    There. I feel much better.

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       Eric Newlandposted 12 years agoin reply to this

       That's why I check my e-mail on my phone where the ads can't find me.

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          Chris Hughposted 11 years agoin reply to this

          I go directly to mail.yahoo.com.  Saves me a lot of annoyance.

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    Wesman Todd Shawposted 11 years ago

    Agrees with Melanie, but wouldn't have noticed or thought of it otherwise.  I've been offended by ads on my hubs before....well, once.
    
    I finally figured out that I couldn't do much about it...so I try not to look at the ads much ...

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