Impact of photoshop
In our society, seeing is believing. Due to this photography has become a big part of how we live today, as it shows us things we do not usually see. Photography is used widely for many purposes today. It is used for advertising, documenting events, photojournalism, for use in magazines and in newspapers, the list of its uses today are endless. A person sees around 5000 photographs a day, and they have a huge impact on our lives.
As said before to humans seeing is believing. So obviously photographs have a huge impact on everyone. But, there’s nothing to say that all images are true or real. For example, hoax images. These are images that have been adapted deliberately to make people believe something untrue. One of the most famous hoax images is that of the Loch Ness Monster. This sparked fear in people for years until it was discovered to be untrue. And despite the knowledge we have of the image being fake many still believe that there is a monster in the Loch.
Photoshop is now always used in the media and in the professional fields of photography. So photographs no longer show the complete truth, and with most people not being aware of this, or the following impacts it can have, photography can how have heavy impacts on beliefs and attitudes of people.
The fact that we are now able to completely alter images has a big impact on how we document events and our society. Now the ‘documentations’ of society may be untrue. An example of this might be photographs of models. These images are highly edited and sometimes completely change how a model looks or is (as you can see below).
This really alters what people see as normal. Making everyone think they must have a perfect body or perfect skin etc. This can be very unhealthy. Unrealistic body expectations have been fueled by Photoshop. In fact many of the Photoshop edits done to models are not even physically possible. All the human anatomy such as intestines and ribs, wouldn’t be there if some Photoshop work was true.
Initially Photoshop was designed to make small, basic adjustments to images. Now however, Photoshop has the ability to completely recreate photos. Among other uses photoshop can now be used for Artistic Photography. This means the images incorporate things that may be abstract for effect or to symbolize something specific. An example of this might be something like this:
For this form of photography photoshop is used for artistic purposes rather than just to make someone look ‘nicer’.
Photoshop and its purposes have changed greatly overtime. And as it has changed the creativity associated with photography and Photoshop have also changed. Although Photoshop can be used to negatively alter perceptions of body image it is now also able to be used as a creative outlet for new/different forms of art. But whatever the outcome, Photoshop has undoubtedly had a huge impact on society.