There has been a fair amount of debate and uproar from women in particular about the way images of models and celebrities are improved using photo editing software to create unachievable standards of beauty. I have even previously written a blog myself about the use of airbrushing and recently Joanne Dewberry began a 'Real Women' campaign following the news that H&M have admitted to using computer-generated bodies to model their clothes. 

Of course to a certain extent I am a little biased on this subject, I am a photo editor after all and I have to admit that I am constantly amazed and impressed with what you can achieve using editing software such as Adobe Photoshop. I guess the problem is that reality is being merged with art, if we look at a painting of a beautiful woman we know that it has been created by a person who has perhaps enhanced their eyes and slimmed their waist. In comparison when we look at a photograph we believe it to be a true image, so when we see photos of celebrities with perfect skin, and tiny waists just hours after giving birth we believe them to be true and then a lot of us aspire to have the same level of perfection. I've often thought that there isn't really a solution to this problem, technology advances and it is likely to get worse before it gets better. However, after thinking about it and reading lots of debates about it I now think that one way of reducing the impact of these photographs is to make it a regulation that any photographs that have been edited in this way (body manipulation etc) should have a mark on it to show that it has been edited. That way at least when young women, and men, are looking through these magazines they can see very easily that yes it is a nice picture but it has been highly edited so should be seen more a piece of art than a true life photograph.

I came across this video clip this morning after seeing a tweet about it from @JayLoftus and I thought that it sums this up wonderfully and I hope it bring a smile to your face!  Remember - this commercial isn't real, and neither are society's standards of beauty! 

I'd love to hear your thoughts to this ongoing debate - all comments are very welcome!

Adding a rainbow to an image can be a beautiful finishing touch and isn't so difficult to do just follow these simple steps! 

For this tutorial I am using Photoshop Elements, the current version is Photoshop Elements 10 and can be purchased for around £50 for either a PC or Mac.

1. Open the photo you would like to apply the rainbow to in Photoshop Elements.

4. The 'Gradients Editor' box will now appear and you will see a colour bar along the bottom of the box. Using the sliding tabs reduce the width of all of the colours and the outside tabs so you are left with a narrow strip of colours in the middle of the bar. See the picture above in step 3 for an example of what the bar should now look like. Set the Opacity to between 20 and 30% to give a more realistic rainbow effect. Click 'Ok' once you have finished doing this.

5. New create a new layer by clicking the 'Create New Layer' button at the bottom of the layers panel over to the right of the screen.

6. To create the rainbow simply click your mouse, hold and drag to make a line and when you release the mouse button the rainbow will appear. As you have created the rainbow in it's own layer you can freely move it and adjust the size without affecting the background image. Have a play around until you are happy with the location of your rainbow.  If you want to change the opacity of the rainbow you can adjust it by changing the opacity of the layer in the layers panel.

7. If you would like it to appear that your rainbow is disappearing behind something you can simply use the eraser tool from the tool panel at the left and just erase any sections of the rainbow you want to be hidden.

8. Finish by right clicking on the background layer and select 'Flatten image'. 

9. Save your completed image and use it for whatever you wish!

I'd love to see your finished rainbow images, come over and visit us on our facebook page  https://www.facebook.com/photofairydesigns and share your rainbow edits!
This is the 3rd in a series of Photoshop Elements Tutorials so please check back for more in the future! 

Over the last few years there has been great deal of debate over the use of airbrushing of photographs for magazines and the media in general. Concerns have been raised about the unachievable image it gives young girls (and boys) of the way they then think their body should look. Does this mean we should all see airbrushing as a bad thing, and something that should be avoided, or is it just another example of a useful tool that has been taken to extremes? 

I'm sure most of us have had photos taken that when looked at we've been disappointed at a spot that had decided to appear that day and has taken center stage on the photograph. Or at the way the light has caught our face that has shown up every slight wrinkle that we didn't even realise we had! The classic in my house is a beautiful photograph of one my boys spoilt by a blob of tomato sauce or chocolate smeared around their mouth that they have been savouring since lunch. Personally, I believe this is where airbrushing has a place.  Not to create an unachievable image but to simply make small corrections to create a more flattering photograph. 

It is a shame that such a fantastic photo editing tool has been abused by extreme use and therefore gained itself a somewhat immoral reputation. I suppose in some forms it is being used as a quick and painless form of plastic surgery when it comes to celebrities. Making legs longer, stomachs slimmer, skin and makeup flawless, even changing eye colour. Perhaps there should be some guidelines as to what is an acceptable level of airbrushing for photos used in the media? Or perhaps there should be clearer information given so young people can see what photos have been edited and understand that in the real world people don't actually look like that.

I guess that the problems with this kind of regulation is where does it stop and how to you truly regulate it anyway? For years artists have painted portraits using their own interpretation of what their subject looked like. Perhaps being a little more flattering to ensure their subject was happy with their finished painting. Maybe airbrushing is simply a modern form of this? We can no longer hide behind an artists brush so we try to hide behind a Photoshop brush instead!

Perhaps the main solution to the body image problem is simply to tell our children that these images aren't real. Point out to them all the different shapes and sizes we come in and that being happy and healthy is something far more important to aspire towards than being a size 6. 

What are your thoughts?