The New York Times had a great article a few days back entitled I Was There. Just Ask Photoshop.. Call me a luddite, but I don't care for much for modifying photos beyond basic lighting and cropping. I wonder if in years to come people will begin to regret prior photoshopping of their lives.
Admittedly cosmetics have been around thousands of years, with archeological evidence of them found amidst ancient Egyptian ruins. Yet photoshop and the like seem to take things a lot further than cosmetics ever have. With cosmetics you can resemble how "you" look in a photo, but even invasive cosmetic surgery can't duplicate all that you can do to a picture of yourself in photoshop.
The more change possible, the more people seem to be dissatisfied with how they look. In the twentieth century the results seem to be widespread eating disorders and depression. Add in the 67% of women who find annoying those 3,276 hours that the average woman spends over the course of a lifetime getting ready for a night out annoying.
Photoshop also results in a loss of history - the focus of the New York Times article. How did you look when growing up? Is that photo real or fake? Who is the "real you"?
