Era of Photoshop - Fashion Retouching

  

There was a time when changing the appearance of a woman in a photograph would take hours and hours of expert, painstaking work by hand. Techniques in the darkroom allowed 20th-century photo editors to “dodge” or “burn”: over- or under-expose images in order to remove “flaws”, such as fine lines or rippling pockets of fat. Retouching required specialist equipment – paints, gelatine, brushes.

Towards the end of the century, Photoshop transformed the way image manipulation was conducted, but nonetheless it still required time and skill from trained professionals, and the software was expensive.

Now, thanks to the rapid rate at which software has developed, anyone can retouch a photograph of themselves in a matter of seconds. Powerful phone apps have, to an extent, democratised photography, in that people can experiment creatively with the images they produce without forking out money for expensive equipment or spending hours hunched over a magnifier. The history of the medium tells us that photographic images have been doctored since its very inception. It is nothing new. But still, there is a dark side to the way retouching is used, especially when it’s on women’s bodies.