I think we’ve reached peak tweak. We’ve all played with filters and at one point or another probably been at least a little bit tempted by various face editing apps after a supposedly unflattering selfie session. But enough is enough. It’s time to chill, take heed and realise that the way things look in real life is absolutely fine.
The weird acceptance of filtered as normal has been fed into our minds for a long time now. Between airbrushed magazine spreads and the array of filters at our disposal, it’s far too easy to fall into the trap of the faux-reality promoted by social media. Supply and demand work hand in hand after all, and so the more we use apps like Instagram and are subconsciously given ideals of what we and the world around us is ‘meant’ to look like, apps are created to help us alter the significantly less glossy reality we live in to keep up with expectations.
Software like PortraitPro Body 2 is an example of this. Developed by scientists at Cambridge and released by Anthropic Technology, the programme allows you to manipulate photos to pretty drastic extremes. It’s no longer only the editors behind fancy ad campaigns who will be able to edit photos within an inch of their lives, we regular people can now do it too.
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If you’re willing to pay £50 for the pleasure, the app lets you correct posture, smooth out skin and edit your body’s proportions, Mail Online reports. The before and after photos released by the PortraitPro Body 2 team are dramatic and even the most Photoshop-trained eye might struggle to spot what and where the final photos had been edited. The product itself has been years in the making and was reportedly trained by developers to recognise the characteristics associated with ‘human beauty’.
But it’s the very idea that there are fixed characteristics associated with ‘beauty’ that is as the crux of this whole problem. We’re fast approaching a point where the real world we live in is going to start to feel disappointing and anticlimactic because the images we see online, as taken by professionals and now ourselves, are so heavily edited all the time. And it’s so easy to do so.
Phones now have built in ‘beauty’ modes on device cameras, portrait mode is a thing and if you don’t dramatically up the brightness and contrast on your scenic holiday picture, would it even be worthy of Instagram? The real answer is yes, of course it’s worthy of Instagram if you let it be. Because people slouch, and that’d fine. Not all of us are a size 8, have flawless skin and a golden glow in the dead of winter, and that’s actually a really good thing.
The real world is great. Beautiful in fact. And while filters and effects can be fun every now and again, there’s way too much software out there that’s leading us to believe otherwise.
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This article originally appeared on The Debrief.