It’s no secret that magazines and other media outlets use Photoshop to make their cover models look “just so,” but is lightening or color correcting a photograph the same as completely changing the way a person looks?
Is this practice of over-photoshopping contributing to damaged body images of Americans?
W Magazine turned a golden goddess Kate Hudson into the ice queen on its September 2008 cover. W is claiming that the image is an actual photograph of Kate Hudson. We’re sure it is, but it looks like the photo editors glossed it over and slicked it up in Photoshop. The image also bears an uncanny resemblance to photographer Patrick Demarchelier’s 1994 Harper’s Bazaar cover photograph of Nadja Auermann. So perhaps W is guilty of more than just changing someone’s face. Way to be creative … stealing someone else’s idea and using it on one of your biggest issues of the year.
Caution: Objects may be larger than they appear. In this case it appears that Seventeen magazine used Photoshop to place Miley Cyrus‘ head on a smaller body. Does this petite 15-year-old really need to appear smaller? It also looks as if they elongated her front teeth and somehow inverted her arms. Or did they do that pose on purpose? That must have been an uncomfortable photo shoot.
Funnyman Dane Cook has recently been complaining about the movie posters for his ssoon-to-be-released flick ‘My Best Friend’s Girl.’ A few of Cook’s complaints are: “The left side of my face seems to be melting off of my skull. It looks like I’m wearing Maybelline Water Shine Diamonds Liquid Lipstick. It’s no secret that I’m more rugged facially due to a drunken visit by the teen acne fairy, but according to this poster I’ve got perfect porcelain flesh.” You missed one Dane: where is the scar on your eyebrow?
Jennifer Love Hewitt was splashed on the cover of US Weekly showing off her 18-pound weight loss, claiming that she lost the weight in 10 weeks. Skeptics are saying Jen used the “Photoshop diet” to shed those pounds. Bloggers have been calling her a hypocrite after her statement when she defended her weight gain on her website: “I know what I look like, and so do my friends and family. And like all women out there should, I love my body.To all girls with butts, boobs, hips and a waist, put on a bikini — put it on and stay strong. XoxoJLH”.
On her new album cover, singer and actress Jennifer Hudson seems to have melted away at the midriff. Jennifer has refused to comment on her new cover.
Ukrainian actress and model Milla Jovovich is not the 13-year-old model she used to be. Can someone please tell Lucky magazine that it’s OK to look your age?
In its September 2008 issue, Elle decided to chop up (lumberjack) Jessica Simpson for the cover. It appears as if the editors chipped away at her waist and part of her left thigh and buttocks. They somehow also made her hair as wide as her hips.
James Franco is glowing on the September cover of GQ. What exactly makes a man glow like that?
Michelle Obama has discovered the fountain of youth. On this month’s cover of Ebony she doesn’t have a single line on her face. Her skin is so beautiful anyway, there was no need to make it unnatural.
Teen Vogue allowed Vanessa Hudgens to look her age on its September cover. She looks natural and very much like herself. There is some shadowing underneath her eyes in the photo on the right, but that’s nothing that a fill light wouldn’t take care of. We think this cover is the least Photoshopped of the month.
At first we thought this was a photo of Mischa Barton’s wax figure on Marie Claire’s UK cover, because apparently her skin has a shiny plastic coating.
‘Gossip Girl’s’ Blake Lively has reportedly been unhappy with recent magazine photographs, but we think she looks beautiful on the September 2008 cover of Cosmopolitan. Her hair is wider than her hips, too, but nonetheless.
Harper’s Bazaar might have made a few minor changes, but Tyra Banks still has it. She even looks great under the glare of flash bulbs (picture at right). The former professional model still knows what she is doing.
We’re comparing the ad to a more recent photo of Beyonce from May 6th. Her skin tone does appear lighter with blond hair than dark brown, but not that light. This week Essence magazine published the same ad from L’Oreal with a much darker-skinned starlet.
Tiny sleeping beauties Knox Leon and Vivienne Marcheline were recently splashed across the covers of two mags, People and Hello. Skeptics are claiming the smiling infants were Photoshopped. They argue that babies do not typically smile from external stimulation until they are 2 to 4 months old. The millions paid by the magazines to the couple to secure the rights to the photos went to the pair’s charity foundation.
Eva Mendes graced the cover of ‘Jane Magazine’, and now you can see the inside where celebs like Joss Stone, Serena Williams, Emily Vancamp, Milla Jovovich, Kate Dillon, Lili Taylor, and Kate Mara also stripped down for a good cause.
Eva Mendes, Kate Mara, Joss Stone, Milla Jovovich, and other famous hotties got naked for Jane’s final issue.
Eva Mendes, Kate Mara, Joss Stone and pregnant Milla Jovovich are among the stars baring all for a provocative new Jane magazine shoot. The ladies agreed to disrobe for a series of sexy snapshots in the publication’s upcoming Body issue.
Actress Mendes, who appears topless on the cover, covering her breasts with pink flowers, admits she was honoured to be asked to appear in what will be Jane’s final issue. She says, “It’s such a girl-friendly magazine and I feel completely honoured to be on the cover and just really comfortable in my skin… I worked really hard for my body and I’m really happy with it.”
You go, girl! Sure, she gets nude for pretty much any magazine that comes asking, but we’re not complaining.
Other reports have plus-sized model Kate Dillon, actress Lili Taylor, and tennis star Serena Williams also taking part in the nude shoots.
Source: “Mendes, Mara & Milla bare all for magazine spread” (ActressArchives) [Which has the most annoying pop-up ads I've ever seen]
With celebrities-turned-fashion designers currently basking in the pop culture spotlight, let’s visit the model-turned-actor’s.
Despite some high profile flops (Cindy Crawford in ‘Fair Game‘, anyone?), there seems to be an endless supply of leggy lovelies dreaming of snagging an Oscar.
LILY COLE
One look at this flame-haired, porcelain-skinned catwalker, and it’s clear that she was destined to play Alice in Wonderland. But given his recent predilection for teenage girls, we can’t help wondering about the wisdom of signing up for the role under the direction of cultural provocateur Marilyn Manson. Still, Cole already has one film project under her belt, playing a schoolgirl in the upcoming St. Trinian’s, co-starring Rupert Everett and Colin Firth and based on a popular British cartoonist’s anarchic vision of boarding school life. And if she can survive the cutthroat fashion world, an aging shock rocker should be, well, child’s play.
EFFORT: B+ TALENT: TO BE DECIDED
GEMMA WARD
The credit for this in-demand model’s role in the upcoming horror movie The Strangers, starring fellow sometimes mannequin, Liv Tyler, is a stroke of pure irony (unwittingly, if we know Hollywood). The face that launched a hundred fashion spreads is listed simply as “Masked Stranger,” although we can’t imagine that the director will be able to keep this wide-eyed lovely under wraps entirely.
EFFORT: N/A TALENT: TO BE DECIDED
GISELE BUNDCHEN
Behind-the-scenes fashion folk have raved about the down-to-earth sense of humor of this arguably most super of supermodels for years, so it’s no surprise that her most memorable film role to date (we’ll forget Taxi, as we hope she has) was as an acid-tongued fashion assistant in the tongue-in-chic blockbuster The Devil Wears Prada. EFFORT: B- TALENT: C+
We have to give credit to anyone who has held her own against Mark Wahlberg AND a hairy ape (Warren did both in Tim Burton’s widely-panned Planet of the Apes remake). Still, the former synchronized swimmer has largely fallen off the radar in recent years, except as a pillow-lipped fantasy figure in the minds of devoted male fans.
EFFORT: C TALENT: C+
CHRISTIE BRINKLEY
That killer smile, that killer car. Brinkley zoomed into every adolescent boy’s dreams thanks to a high profile cameo as “the girl in the Ferrari” in the comedy classic National Lampoon’s Vacation, but these days she’s more likely to be found tooling around her beloved Hamptons—and holding her head up in the aftermath of a nasty divorce—than appearing at a theater near you. EFFORT: C TALENT: C
REBECCA ROMIJN
Hate her or love her, it appears that Rebecca Romijn, actress, is here to stay. Fusing her smoldering swimsuit model physique with a goofy girl next door charm, the former Mrs. Full House has emerged with a full-fledged second career that’s fast outstripping (pun intended) her Victoria’s Secret heyday.
EFFORT: A+ TALENT: B-
CLAUDIA SCHIFFER
She spoofed herself in Zoolander and took on a bit more of a stretch in filmmaker James Toback’s controversial exploration of race relations, Black and White, but at the end of the day this Teutonic supermodel’s most absorbing role is playing mom to children, Caspar and Clementine.
EFFORT: C- TALENT: B
MILLA JOVOVICH
This sharp-cheekboned Slavic stunner has carved out a niche for herself on the other side of the catwalk, as half of the design team behind hipster label Jovovich-Hawk, but she’s played a pretty convincing alien in her day (in former flame’s Luc Besson’s fantastical The Fifth Element), and she’s set to return to the silver screen this fall as the star of the latest installment of the horror-sci-fi series Resident Evil.
EFFORT: A TALENT: C-
CINDY CRAWFORD
Internationally recognized as one of the original core supermodels, Cindy Crawford seemed to have been “marked” for commercial success. Just not in the film/television category. She started off strong with the George Michael “Freedom 90″ video, and the hot Pepsi commercials in the mid-’90s, but when she tried her hand at film (the forgettable Fair Game), her star quickly fizzled out.
EFFORT: B TALENT: D
ELLE MACPHERSON
This eternal amazon’s lingerie empire is now her central focus, but back in the late ‘90s “The Body” made a genuine stab at movie stardom, showing up in such diverse films as the sophisticated sex-drenched comedy Sirens, opposite Hugh Grant, and the bloated big budget flop Batman and Robin.
EFFORT: C+ TALENT: B+
NAOMI CAMPBELL
Her frenzy-inducing public service stint was more entertaining than anything we’ve seen in theaters in years, so here’s hoping that this tempestuous fashion icon harnesses even an iota of her naturally dramatic mojo for her rumored upcoming movie project.
EFFORT: A TALENT: TBD
And… the ONLY MALE…
ASHTON KUTCHER, Yes… he was first a model!
No exploration of the model-turned-actor phenomenon would be complete without Demi Moore’s favorite accessory. Despite attempts at scaling the dramatic A-list, former Calvin Klein model Kutcher is still best known for playing dim-witted Kelso on the long-running sitcom That ‘70s Show and for playing practical jokes on fellow celebrities on his reality show Punk’d. Oh, and of course for being, like, the best stepdad EVER!
EFFORT: B TALENT: B
This is the first I’ve heard of a new sequel in the Resident Evil series. This one looks to be as thrilling as the others. Can’t wait!
Synopsis:
Director Russell Mulcahy takes over for the third and final chapter in the Resident Evil film trilogy that finds genetically altered Alice (Milla Jovovich) joining forces with Carlos (Oded Fehr) and L.J. (Mike Epps) to take down the Umbrella Corporation once and for all.
Upon emerging from her hideout in the Nevada desert, Alice is quickly joined by old friends Carlos and L.J., as well as survivors Claire (Ali Larter), K-Mart (Spencer Locke), and Nurse Betty (Ashanti). Now instilled with super-human strength, senses, and dexterity as a result of the biogenetic experimentation conducted on her by the Umbrella Corporation, Alice and the rest of the survivors set out to eliminate a virus that threatens to turn every living human undead, and ensure that the mysterious organization pays the price for their horrific crimes against humanity.
With Paris Hilton’s “so-called” music debut plummeting rapidly; her life is continuing to just (for a lack of better words)…SUCK! First she gets snubbed at a club, making her cry like a baby. Then she gets a DUI… now this! The poor dear.
PARIS Hilton is not wanted at Ian Schrager’s Gramercy Park Hotel. Friday night, after partying at Marquee and drinking “lots” of vodka and pineapple juice, Hilton tried to join Orlando Bloom, Winona Ryder and Josh Lucas in the hotel’s Rose Bar, but bouncer Damien stopped her due to Schrager’s decree that “the likes of Paris Hilton and her ilk are not welcome here.” Hilton had further bad luck Sunday when she crashed the party at Milla Jovovich’s townhouse - after the bash was over. source
Director Russell Mulcahy takes over for the third and final chapter in the Resident Evil film trilogy that finds genetically altered Alice (Milla Jovovich) joining forces with Carlos (Oded Fehr) and L.J. (Mike Epps) to take down the Umbrella Corporation once and for all. 
