Adobe Photoshop is a picture editing program created by John & Thomas Knoll. It costs around $50.00 to download it and it can be very useful for print or digital media. Nowadays, many magazine use Photoshop to retouch the pictures. They usually remove wrinkles of the clothes, temporary blemishes or hair wisps, but sometimes it can be excessive. Some people use it to make models look thinner, or younger, or have different features. Sometimes it is just the editor’s lack of experience or professionalism, while some other retouches are made on purpose to make models look better or rather perfect. These images can make people think that what they’re seeing is achievable while in fact it’s not real.

In 2011, fourteen-year-old Julia Bluhm got sick of seeing fake photos of girls in Seventeen magazine and decided to fight against it. She started a protest and petitioned the magazine to aim for one unaltered per month. She collected 84,000 signatures of young girls and sent them to Seventeen. Then Bluhm went to New York City to protest in front of their offices. In response, the magazine promised to “never change girls’ body or face shapes” when retouching images and to show healthy models. Now Bluhm is focused on Teen Vogue.

Retouching pictures isn’t acceptable when it alters someone’s figure, when it removes permanent imperfections such as wrinkles, and when it makes someone look plastic. Some magazines’ or web sites’ pictures are unbelievably false. They send the message that natural beauty isn’t good enough and that perfection is the goal.

Here are some examples of Photshop fails: