Britain's Liberal Democrats Wants Photoshopped Ad Photos Banned

Britain's Liberal Democrats are proposing a policy to ban photos that have been "airbrushed", or manipulated to make the subject look thinner or free from blemishes. The new policy would require all images manipulated by tools like photoshop to bear a message indictating they have been airbrushed. In order to protect children from societal pressures caused by images of false perfection, the policy proposes banning airbrushing for ads that target those under 16.

Photo retouching is a common practice in advertising and entertainment industry. In fact, every photo in a magazine is more or less digitally enhanced, from minor adjustments in contrast to removal of body fat. The difficulty is in drawing the line of what is acceptable and what is not.

The ads in question this time are Olay face cream featuring Twiggy, and Campari featuring Jessica Alba. Twiggy's age lines had been removed, and Jessica Alba was made slimmer. This is not the first time the issue has been raised. Last year, the British Fashion Council asked magazines to voluntarily declare if an image had been altered. There is, however, little incentive for doing so.

Liberal Democrats is a minority party in Britain, with only 9.6% of seats in the parliament, but has received 22.1% of the votes in 2005 general election.

The effort is met with skepticism in the online community. Advertising professionals can use other ways to achieve similar results, as they did before digital manipulation came about. Photographers can do a lot with makeup, lighting, and camera angles.