Korean Photoshop Disaster #5: Girls’ Generation’s legs too fat for China?
( Source )
Given the clear artistic license applied to the other main image in this series, would you say that here too, the graphic designer deliberately intended for members of Girls’ Generation (소녀시대) to look like virtual caricatures of themselves?
Update: See Korean Lovers Photoblog for the full series.
(For more posts in the Korean Photoshop Disasters series, see here)
Korean Photoshop Disaster #3: Park Tae-hwan’s Babyface
( Source: High Cut )
Granted, it’s not the most egregious case of a Korean athlete’s face being photoshopped. That dubious honor still remains firmly in the hands of Gillette Korea, whose choice of pockmarked Manchester United footballer Park Ji-sung (박지성) to endorse them last year is probably also the most glaring example of the over-reliance on celebrities in Korean advertising too.
Unlike him though, youthful Olympic medalist Park Tae-hwan (박태환) already has unblemished and unusually smooth skin, which raises the question of what the photoshopping was for exactly?
Personally, it reminds me of the airbrushing of Milla Jovovich’s face in Resident Evil: Extinction (2007), which many viewers found unnecessary, confusing and/or distracting. Indeed, while I’ll be the first to admit that Tae-hwan has a great body (more of which you can see in the last post), and with the proviso that I’m a (jealous) heterosexual male, I’d say that in the second picture in the series his now somewhat seal-like face simply draws too much attention away from his abs…
Can anyone think of similar examples, particularly Korean ones? Please pass them on!
(For all posts in the Korean Photoshop Disasters series, see here)
Girls’ Generation’s Secrets Revealed?
That advertisements featuring Girl’s Generation (소녀시대) are invariably photoshopped isn’t news of course, and these ones are hardly the most egregious examples either. But in a rare positive step, the before and after pictures for their latest advertisements for the LG Black Label Series Chocolate phone are currently featured on the front page of the “Enter Holic” or “Entertainmentholic” (엔터홀릭) section of the Korean MSN homepage, and so will have been the first thing many people saw when they opened Windows Live Messenger this morning.
Not to imply that most Koreans aren’t aware of photoshopping in advertisements of course. But still, anything that fosters further discussion of that is to be encouraged.
( Source: goagsu4 )
Or at least, that was my first impression. Looking more closely though, in fact it was the before images that were used in the advertisements. Unfortunately there is no information about who created the photoshopped images, or why, but with the statement “Wow! Very subtle changes make a big difference” (아주 미묘한 차이가 큰 차이를 만드는구놔), he or she implies that the altered images are to be preferred.
Sigh.
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