It’s no secret that Photoshop has taken over our culture, constantly shoving false images of models and celebrities alike into the eyes of regular girls. Though photo editing for longer, thinner bodies and smoother, glowing skin isn’t anything new and most people are aware of it, that doesn’t mean that young girls aren’t taking the images to heart, developing an opinion that they’ll never be as “beautiful” as the women in these altered images. The latest development, though, is even more disheartening: Photo editing apps are now available on a consumer level, and majorly being used by young women to edit selfies before they’re being posted to social media sites.
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Though there are countless apps available, the most popular ones at the moment are Perfect365, Visage Lab and Face Tune. With these apps, users can clear up their skin, erase under eye circles, make their teeth look whiter and alter their selfies in a number of other ways to look “perfect.” “There’s definitely more pressure to have a better version of yourself or put your best foot forward,” said Caroline Tien-Spalding, director of consumer marketing at ArcSoft, Perfect365’s parent company. “You don’t know how long that photo is going to live or how long the impression that you’re putting out there will last.”
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It’s one thing to hire a professional photographer for your wedding and have them touch up your photos; it is another thing entirely to Photoshop your face each and every time you take a selfie and post it to Instagram. Not only does this mean that girls will have lower self-esteem each time they feel they need to edit themselves, it also means that friends of these girls will become more self-conscious because if they’re not using these photo editing apps, they’ll feel they’re not as “pretty” as their friends who are using the app. It’s a vicious cycle, and we hope that somehow, girls will refuse using the app in favor of showing themselves the way they are naturally on social media.
