Retouched Before and After Images

Just from searching for a minute, I found several websites containing retouched before and after images. On this site, There are several photos of celebrities that have been retouched and it is just amazing how many differences there are between the two pictures. In my opinion, the 7th picture down is one of the most dramatic. It's a close up of a woman and in the retouched image her face is much brighter, there is more color in her lips and eyes, her skin looks all over smoother, etc. There are many obvious differences from one picture to the other.

These picture retouches of celebrities, women, and men are giving everyone else an image of what they think they should look like. I believe that this is a very negative impact, especially on young girls. From even the youngest of ages, they are playing with barbie dolls that have this unattainable image. Then they move onto seeing various advertisements of retouched women and girls and any flaw now becomes bad. Women and men both spend so much money on improving their images and trying to reach this ideal image of a man and woman that most likely will not be reached. These kinds of things really effect people's self-esteem and their overall personality that is expressed to others. I know that there are most people will say if they are unsatisfied with how they look that day, they may be more reluctant to talk to others, they don't feel as good about themselves, and many other things. We have all heard and thought things like this and in reality, because we don't live up to these refined images, it should not effect our daily lives and it really does.