As someone stated above, these aren’t your family photo pictures. These are for ads, and everyone knows, the sexier the better b/c it’s more attention grabbing. You don’t have to like that rule, but it exists and it’s real. Feron is simply doing what he’s being paid to do, and he does it amazingly well.

I would love to watch him from beginning to end to see how he does it. I can get close in many respects, but I don’t know if I could pull of the final look like he does.

But it is true, that young girls are harming themselves to look as glamerous as the women in the ads and the way magazines portray them. It’s sad, but I don’t think that Feron is the one responsible.
I think that girls in high school should be given before and after classes using Feron’s examples to show what those “gorgeous” models in the ads really look like before several hours (days?) of computer manipulation. It would open their eyes.

If these were being sold as a portrait to the actual person the first reaction might be “fantastic”, but then they would see how unreal the image of themselves had been made.

I personally would be mad at the photographer for insulting me about the size of my ears and that they were arbitrarily changed. Even for fashion/glamour work I think Feron’s work is too much.

It is amazing to see what they can do, but that was the way it was when retouchers were working on negatives.

Seriously, to some of the points above, if these photogs didn’t allow us to see the Before, you (or most people anyway) would accept the After as what came out of the camera — that’s the way the human mind works. I don’t particularly care for the style of any of these folks, but it’s certainly of a genre that we encounter every day in magazines, on TV, etc. so it’s generous of them, in a way, to let those of us who are interested in the “under the hood” part of all of this get a glimpse.

Cindy Smith

But the most stupidest (sic) thing is that enough dumb people actually believe what they see in these images. The result: a beauty craze that drives people into plastic surgery, eating disorders and depression.

Brilliant.

Regards,
Alex H.

Keep up the great work Matt.

Thanks!

I agree that what he can do is amazing. He makes changing the direction of limbs (angles that don’t even exist in the photo) look seamless.

I guess I’m just hyper-sensitive to it since you hear most retouching teachers / books talk about subtlety.

Great post though.

A little hello from paris, I have been doing a lot of training on retouching learning from you, dave and scott, you guys are brilliant with your help I have boost my business way up as a photographer, you can see some of the result here :

http://www.photoserge.com

Tks again, I hope I will get to one of your seminar one day, ever planned on coming to paris ?

I really like the idea that you don’t always have to spend thousands on a studio and lighting. Photoshop, and Lightroom, really open the possibilities!

Thanks much,

Michael J. Titera

Photography has always lied about reality, even if it’s just choosing what to show in the frame and what to leave out.

What I’m objecting to is the garish manipulation of people to the cartoonish degrees shown in these websites. After all, in these examples we are talking about models, and their looks aren’t good enough without massive manipulation beyond any semblance of human anatomy? Removing some acne or a mole is one thing, making bad paintings is something else.