Makeup Ads Banned in UK for Too Much Photoshop

fsnewslogo Makeup Ads Banned in UK for Too Much Photoshop

I just read on PetaPixel that the “Advertising Standards Authority, the ad industry watchdog in the UK, has banned an advertisement by Lancome featuring Julia Roberts for being misleading, stating that the flawless skin seen in the photo was too good to be true.”

I’m curious to know how fellow photographers and retouchers feel about standards and regulations governing our practices where advertising is concerned. How would it effect the way we do our jobs or how we look at things aesthetically, creatively and socially?

“The spread, shot by Mario Testino, shows 43-year-old Roberts glowing and fresh-faced, the result of having used Lancome’s Teint Miracle foundation. The ad claims the foundation ‘recreates the aura of perfect skin.’”

roberts Makeup Ads Banned in UK for Too Much Photoshop

“The ad authority also went after the cosmetics company for altering photos of natural beauty Christy Turlington in an ad for Maybelline’s The Eraser foundation, which contrasts parts of the model’s face covered in foundation to parts left untouched.”

turlington Makeup Ads Banned in UK for Too Much Photoshop

turlington Makeup Ads Banned in UK for Too Much Photoshop

I understand that their primary concern centers around exagerated product claims but I can’t help but feel there is the deeper issue here, concerning the unrealistic perception of health and beauty that advertisers and the media places on people. Would it be such a bad thing if we had someone looking over our shoulders while we did post production, going, “tsk tsk tsk”?

via [PetaPixel], [NYDailyNews]

From Kenn:
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July 27, 2011

Kenn Tam

FS News

http://www.colorspace.am Alex Masters

When middle aged women with near perfect skin to begin with (and a bearing a striking resemblance to Ms Roberts) start having their make up applied on daily basis by a professional and have headshots taken by Testino, THEN they’ll have grounds to complain.

Aside: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gsqahGYl21 <- Not sure about Julia, but you /can/ look like Angelina :3
http://www.facebook.com/people/Amanda-Carnovale/819358705 Amanda Carnovale

Unfortunately a vast majority of the general public are stupid. I’ve work in retail jewellery for years, the company do TV advertising. The amount of people that come in and say.. “OH, it looks smaller than on the ad!” is incredible. People have no concept of reality compared to what they see in the fantasy world of television (and/or film and magazines). It’s a bit sad really!
http://pulse.yahoo.com/_J5EUPYASXXSIX5UAFVSPPFJISE Martin

sounds like this is the old argument for responsibility that has been inherent in the free market system aeons before P.T. Barnum informed us about the gestation schedule of suckers (caveat emptor comes to mind). the last thing we need is another “watchdog” organization with the ability to be corrupted to force a mandate on a non-existant problem. guns, tobacco, video games, processed fossil fuels and cell phones have all had their time in front of judges and throngs of angry, self-promoting do-gooders portending the doom of society if these are not thoroughly regulated. in some cases, this could be true, but the base problem in most, if not all of these cases I feel is the responsibility of the individual buyer. few enough people take responsibility for their actions in the pedestrian goings-on without much of a care as to their effect on those around them and when it does come time to own up to the blame, the finger pointing is fierce and loud.
http://profiles.google.com/simon.lynchsae Simon Lynch

Sorry Patrick but Julia smiles at me every morning… kidding!

But I AM happy to see that fake makeup, artificial plastic surgery is being hunted down. Don’t get me wrong, i love seeing who to retouch skin and stuff. Not the best at it (the worst) but I respect the artists who do. But if Lancome, Maybeline and others DIDN’T ask for perfect skin (so perfect that it’s fake) would they still do it? I don’t believe so.

I don’t know any photographers around me that prefer the plastic fake look.

I read down to find some nice argument: “That the general public is so stupid that we need to protect them from the ways of advertising!”. Yes. Advertising WAS in the 40′s 50′s informational. So you would advertise the benefits and advantages of the product because that’s how people knew products existed. Things change but people still see ads like they did. People buy SUV’s thinking “if ever I go off-road” but the tire aren’t even good in mud (example: Cayenne, Audi’s Q series, Rav4s….) Consumers ARE stupid by definition. They don’t know the product, so you can (shouldn’t…but you can) lie to them and they will believe you.

If we approach advertising purely on the fact that it’s there to “sell you fantasy”, we are going off track. Advertising WAS and should still be about informing that a new thingy is out. saying it’s powerfull, beautiful, that you need it, you want it, that it’s better than other is all ok. As long as it’s true.

To sell fantasies, we have the film industries…
http://profiles.google.com/simon.lynchsae Simon Lynch

It’s scary to read people relying on individual responsability (when comes the times to see if you’re being lied at).

Does this mentality applies to those who are unable to see the diffrence? Those with mental challenges? Old people who have degenerative mental states?

and the responsability to the buyer? REALLY? and this applies to everything? No regulation for nothing? “guns, tobacco, video games, processed fossil fuels and cell phones ” How about explosives? Toxic material? Radioactive metals? Poisons? Drugs? Should we deregulate those too? Let the buyer be responsible of the information about the product? Why not sell depleted uranium pellets as alternate medecine? Let the man do the reading of the label that coud kill him?

“According to UNICEF, “Nearly a billion people will enter the 21st century unable to read a book or sign their names and two thirds of them are women.” reading the label and making an informed decision is out of reach of at least a billions human on the planet.
Anonymous

Hi Patrick, you’re right about the slippery slope. There is an old movie with Michael Douglas called “Falling Down” where he goes into a fast food restaurant and orders french fries and demands that they look exactly like the fries in the picture in the advertisement. This scene was popular because mainstream audiences have always been aware that advertising is not exactly representative of reality. I wouldn’t worry too much about censorship because it’s essentially not enforceable (over time) in the United States, but I would worry about audience perceptions and how they will react to digital work and manipulation/retouching as we head into the future.

Artists often talk about “auras” that surround art objects. Many would find it fascinating to be in the presence of something like the Mona Lisa painting because of it’s aura. Photography is a relatively new medium and the chemical process of creating a photograph, especially in the 1800s, carried an aura of appeal. People were amazed that an image would appear “as if by magic” through a chemical process.

Digital is simple, fast and easy for everybody to create a photograph. The ease of use associated with digital has destroyed much of the aura surrounding the picture making process. However, digital has also made it easier and more popular to manipulate images than ever before. Liberal use of manipulation has caused audiences to question more about the authenticity of the subjects contained in photos. People now want to know if the subject is real. They look at a photographs and ask themselves… “Is it real?”

The question of reality has shifted the aura in photography from the early days of chemical process to the modern day authenticity of the subject in a digital photograph. This shift in aura is going to dominate future taste in the marketplace. Photographers that create work that audience perceive as authentic depictions of genuine subject matter are going to be rewarded. Their work will contain the aura of authenticity. On the contrary, photographers that are very liberal in their application of manipulation techniques will find their work increasingly more difficult to sell in a marketplace that will continue to make further demands for greater reality.
http://www.facebook.com/greg.brave Greg Brave

I think the main issue here that advertising, all kinds of it, creates “false” reality which leads many people (mostly teenagers but not only them) to believe that somewhere there exists “perfect life” with unrealistically beautiful men and women, who always smile and are generally perfect. This makes people look around, see their “less than perfect” life and feel bad about it and about themselves. So they will buy the advertising products dreaming of making their life perfect as it looks in advertisement.
And this is truly misleading.
http://www.facebook.com/people/Paulo-Matos-Raimundo/100000947657515 Paulo Matos Raimundo

“the industry has set “beauty” standards to a very unrealistic bar” Agree with you on this. But i also think that the industry is a bit relative. I saw photoshoped photos of people that looked like dolls, not human, they somehow in the way of the process lost their human look and became a figure of inanimate state. There are only some that do this, because you nowadays see in most post production tutorials that they leave some imperfections just because of the doll effect. Do you think that the Julia photo looks like a doll? I could say that it doesnt but im afraid that it´s because it a movie star and you recognize her…dont know.. :
http://www.facebook.com/people/Paulo-Matos-Raimundo/100000947657515 Paulo Matos Raimundo

I agree with you, and im afraid to say that if this is banned than all the world on advertisement should be as well banned, because of what you said, the public is stupid…we have thousands of other commercials that arent banned…
Jamie Weir

This isn’t the same as Chase Jarvis selling a Nikon. It would be like Chase Jarvis selling a Nikon Camera, and having footage saying “Shot with a Nikon D5100″, but neglecting to mention that there was massive amounts of post work done in AfterEffects to make it look how it did.

If this ad was for Rolex, and it was this identical image of her, but holding the watch, it wouldn’t come under fire or be an issue, because it doesn’t matter what she looks like, so long as the product being displayed is accurate. However, this is an ad for the makeup, implying that when used, that product will give the results shown in the image. That is a lie.

I cannot rationalize opposing censorship of lies. I have no issues with manipulation and using sex to sell a product, so long as the product itself isn’t being falsely advertised. There are exceptions, of course. The first thing that comes to mind is something like Axe products, that imply using their product will instantly have you surrounded by hot women. That’s done in such an extreme over the top method though, you know they’re not serious about that claim. The Lancome ad is not approaching it that way. It’s not trying to be over the top or absurd. It genuinely wants to imply that using that product will yield those results.

With regards to your lower comment on the Apple commercial being sped up, I’m just as opposed. They actively and consciously lied about how the advertised product performs, and as such, I feel they should have had to either have a footnote saying “This is sped up”, or not been allowed to do it.
http://www.facebook.com/jaymespoudrier Jaymes Poudrier

Maybe 50/50 the less detail you show the more flawless something appears. I don’ think anyone can really be presented as flawless in this sort of close-up shot, but one can get extremely close.
http://www.facebook.com/jaymespoudrier Jaymes Poudrier

I don’t think that people can’t figure the real size of the item, but it is wishful thinking. They want what they want wether it is rational or not. Then again I could be wrong, but I hope people aren’t that ignorant. Maybe I give humanity too much credit.
http://www.facebook.com/jaymespoudrier Jaymes Poudrier

Chris, art is subjective. I personally love the look of “porcelain skin” even though I know that it is fake. There is no way to get something 100% right in camera because the definition of right is in the eye of the beholder. If you have ever had a shot published anywhere, I gaurantee it was retouched wether you know it or not. Have you ever adjusted the colors/contrast/saturation of an image? That is just as much a photomanipulation as anything else. Trust me…even if you don’t think it needs to be changed it can benefit from it.
http://www.facebook.com/jaymespoudrier Jaymes Poudrier

People get implants and surgeory to modify themselves. They can also get peircings and tattoos. Should all of those be banned as well? They are false representations of who you are. I would go even further and say that wearing clothes is a false representation of ones body. Where do we draw the line?
http://www.facebook.com/jaymespoudrier Jaymes Poudrier

As impossibly unnattainable as things may seem, they are goals one can strive for even if they should never make it to that point. Where would we be if we didn’t believe in alternative uses for technology past, that has created the technology of the present, or even the future. Things may seem impossible. Sometimes they are, but perhaps we are all missing something. Did anyone think that the advertisement might not just be marketing to the target market, but simultaneously making a future for image retouching? It doesn’t benefit the company selling the product directly, but it would benefit the company doing the retouching to have more talent.
http://www.facebook.com/jaymespoudrier Jaymes Poudrier

What about products that DO work, but that DON’T work for everyone. They can solve for a few variables, but there are currently estimated to be 6.93 billion people on the planet. All people with slight genetic differences. Point being, something can work at it’s foundation for most without working for all. The degree to which something is “photoshopped” could have standards applied to it. I think that might solve some of the debate. Personally I think “So what if she has flawless skin, would you not complain if she were advertising the product without skin.”?
http://www.facebook.com/jaymespoudrier Jaymes Poudrier

Or how about the schools that advertise “Gauranteed job placement for life”. No one can make that kind of promise… and yet they do.
http://twitter.com/photosbymotti Motti Bembaron

I don’t want a piece of equipment to perform exactly as it would in the hands of the person advertises it. I would want it to perform exactly the way I want it to and therefore produce what I want it to produce.
——————–

The “beauty” industry has gone way too far in misleading the public and never paid the consequences, they just make more money. The best way organizations can fight those companies and their stupid adds (most are pure rubbish and lies) is to have X number of people using the product for a period of time.

Make the company supply the products used (cost them pennies and if they refuse ban the add). If after this set period they conclude that the product is garbage, announce it publicly and demand to stop the add. Might sound like a lot of work but nothing easy is worth while anyway.

Do that for a few years on hundreds of products World wide and companies will be thinking twice before misleading the public.

This, by the way, should not be the same as those TV shows that go after companies and try to prove them wrong. Most people are very cynical of TV networks thinking (and rightly so) that the networks have to come up with some reality-drams news shows to keep ratings. That should be done by organizations that are legitimized World wide and using “normal” fox like you and me (you, anyway) to conduct the testing.

Have a monthly publication either on TV, print or, even better, Social Networks and I bet that after a while it will become a bench mark place for many beauty products.
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=59503071 Matt Skalski

The key difference you are missing here is that Makeup, unlike the other things you mentioned, exists to provide a false representation of one’s skin, so if you apply the product to a model and then retouch the image, you are unrealistically representing the effectiveness of the product (ie it’s ability to make your skin look better than it actually is).
Anonymous

I normally don’t agree with many of the recent infringements of many government authorities; but, I do have to agree with the Advertising Standards Authority on this one.

Retouching, in my opinion has crossed a line, and is having an adverse affect on the little girls, young women, and women in our society. Women, young women, girls are being bombarded with images of flawlessness/perfection, which is impossible for them to achieve; yet, they try to achieve it. Dove has a campaign which addresses this issue and you can find the video on YouTube:

Related to the above video and the same campaign is this video:

I have a little girl and despite any imperfections she may have, which I am oblivious to, she is beautiful no matter what.
http://profiles.google.com/simon.lynchsae Simon Lynch

You are missing the point that the alterration you mention, are REAL in a sens that one person CAN look like this with surgery, clothes etc…

No one can walk around with a digitaly enhanced face. Apples and oranges.
http://profiles.google.com/simon.lynchsae Simon Lynch

You are missing the point that the alterration you mention, are REAL in a sens that one person CAN look like this with surgery, clothes etc…

No one can walk around with a digitaly enhanced face. Apples and oranges.
http://profiles.google.com/simon.lynchsae Simon Lynch

Most impressively, Dove manages to stay profitable while telling women around the world to love their own body and not try to change it.

Proofs, that you don’t have to sell lies and alternate realities to make money.
http://profiles.google.com/simon.lynchsae Simon Lynch

Most impressively, Dove manages to stay profitable while telling women around the world to love their own body and not try to change it.

Proofs, that you don’t have to sell lies and alternate realities to make money.
Gus Munoz

This is the unfortunates and pressures that our children must face, and have to live with. As a photographer, I don’t photoshop. I edit. But keep it real.
Michael Adkins

The illusion of advertising is always just that, an illusion. Take food photography, when have you ever purchased a MacDonald’s hamburger that looks like the ad. It is the job of the photographer and digital artist to help the client sell the illusion. To stop the viewer and say wow, I want that. We all strive for perfection but rarely get it. So would you really want to purchase makeup if the photo shows a pimple faced model with pits in her skin? We know the models are made up, digitally enhanced, and even made to not look real. The advertiser is not trying to hide that fact but to say the product will help. We do not need to start requiring ads to all have disclaimers like, if you use our product you most likely will not look like Julia Roberts and by the way this ad shows digitally enhanced skin. We the consumer really know that. Give the consumer a little credit of some intelligence. After all most all professional portrait studios now digitally enhance there clients photos and none of my clents say “Hay, it does not look like me, I want the mole back”.
Joseph T.

Nowhere in the ad does it claim to make anyone look like the photograph. It advertises improvement, but to no specific level, which is clearly listed on the product’s disclaimers. I understand that the British government is somewhat dictatorial in comparison to the U.S., but this is going a bit too far, even for a pseudo-free nation. What is the next step? Banning ALL food ads and pictures? Banning ALL tourism photos used to entice visitors that use ND or circ polarizer filters because they intensify a drab place you wouldn’t actually want to visit into an image of incredible beauty, and therefore again false advertisement?

If the British government is going to act like a dictatorship, then they should stop their own hypocritical alterations of ALL publicity shots of the royal family. Talk about photoshop…just look at the official shots of the big wedding!!!
http://twitter.com/shawnfrommoigh SHAWN HOOPER

It’s the same concept as putting marbles in the bottom of soup bowls. The product IS THERE…just “enhanced”. It’s this “enhancement” that is considered “Deceptive” by law people.
NOW, conversely, if this is advertising your PHOTO BUSINESS…well, that’s a different story.