camera never lies

The camera never lies?

In our modern world today, we cannot escape being drawn to advertising. It is everywhere such as billboards, television, Internet, washroom, public transport and etc. Retouching have been applied in most advertising now days which can be the simple removal of a few wrinkles, the darkening of gray hair or minimizing of a double chin. Every photo you see today on magazine covers and high-­‐end advertising has been retouched.

Retouching images does offer benefits to the advertiser as no one’s skin is crystal clear and when advertising a cosmetic product, retouching an image to create the look of perfection helps. Retouching can make a model's hair glossier for a shampoo advert or a model thinner for a clothing advert. All these manipulations are done to try to get people to purchase the advertised product. This opens up the job for retouchers who have the talent on manipulating images.
On the other hand this is also costly, as the advertiser has to hire someone to do the retouching which also delays the time. Another big issue with retouching model in advertising is that it creates a false truth.
Meaning they are selling a product based on an unachievable result.

Us consumers cannot even tell if the image is showing us a true representation, or an idealist truth the advertising companies want us to believe in.

In my opinion retouching in an advert is understandable as no one is perfect in the world so they try to achieve this through manipulation. It could be wrong to do so but people now days do not trust the images, as they are aware of Photoshop retouching. People buy products because they believe in the product and not the image they see.