Photoshopped or Not? A Tool to Tell

The photographs of celebrities and models in fashion advertisements and magazines are routinely 1)buffed with a helping of digital polish. The 2)retouching can be slight—colors brightened， a 3)stray hair put in place， a 4)pimple healed. Or it can be 5)drastic—shedding 10 or 20 pounds， adding a few inches in height and erasing all wrinkles and 6)blemishes， done using Adobe’s Photoshop software， the photo retoucher’s magic 7)wand.

“Fix one thing， then another and pretty soon you end up with Barbie，” said Hany Farid， a professor of computer science and a digital 8)forensics expert at 9)Dartmouth.

And that is a problem， feminist 10)legislators in France， Britain and Norway say， and they want digitally altered photos to be labeled. In June， the American Medical Association adopted a policy on body image and advertising that urged advertisers and others to “discourage the altering of photographs in a manner that could promote unrealistic expectations of appropriate body image.”

Dr. Farid said he became intrigued by the problem after reading about the photolabeling proposals in Europe. 11)Categorizing photos as either altered or not altered seemed too 12)blunt an 13)approach， he said.

Dr. Farid and Eric Kee， a 14)Ph.D. student in computer science at Dartmouth， are proposing a software tool for measuring how much fashion and beauty photos have been altered， a 1-to-5 scale that distinguishes the 15)infinitesimal from the 16)fantastic. Their research was published last December in a scholarly journal， the 17)Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Their work is intended as a technological step to address concerns about the 18)prevalence of highly idealized and digitally edited images in advertising and fashion magazines. Such images， research suggests， contribute to 19)eating disorders and anxiety about body types， especially among young women.

The Dartmouth research， said Seth Matlins， a former 20)talent agent and marketing executive， could be “hugely important” as a tool for objectively measuring the degree to which photos have been altered. He and his wife， Eva Matlins， the founders of a women’s online magazine， Off Our Chests， are trying to gain support for legislation in America. Their proposal， the Self-Esteem Act， would require photos that have been “meaningfully changed” to be labeled.

“We’re just after truth in advertising and 21)transparency，” Mr. Matlins said. “We’re not trying to 22)demonize Photoshop or prevent creative people from using it. But if a person’s image is drastically altered， there should be a reminder that what you’re seeing is about as true as what you saw in Avatar，”the science-fiction movie with computer-generated actors and visual effects.

The 23)algorithm developed by Dr. Farid and Mr. Kee statistically measures how much the image of a person’s face and body has been altered. Many of the before-and-after photos for their research were 24)plucked from the Web sites of professional photo retouchers， promoting their skills.

The algorithm is meant to 25)mimic human perceptions. To do that， hundreds of people were recruited online to compare sets of before-and-after images and to determine the 1-to-5 scale， from minimally altered to 26)starkly changed. The human rankings were used to train the software.

His tool， Dr. Farid said， would ideally be a 27)vehicle for self-regulation. Information and 28)disclosure， he said， should create 29)incentives that reduce retouching. “Models， for example， might well say， ‘I don’t want to be a 5. I want to be a 1，’ ”he said.

Yet even without the 30)prod of a new software tool， there is a trend toward Photoshop restraint， said Lesley Jane Seymour， editor in chief of More， a magazine for women over 40.

Women’s magazine surveys， said Ms. Seymour， a former editor of 31)Marie Claire and 32)Redbook， show that their readers want celebrities to “look great but real.” “What’s 33)terrific is that we’re having this discussion，” she said. But readers， she added， have become increasingly 34)sophisticated in understanding that photo retouching is widespread， and the 35)overzealous digital transformations become notorious， with the before-and-after images posted online and ridiculed.

“Readers aren’t fooled if you really 36)sculpt the images，” Ms. Seymour said. “If you’re a good editor， you don’t go too far these days. If you give someone a 37)face-lift，” she said， “you’re a fool.”

PS鑒定術

時尚廣告及雜志上的明星模特照片被加以數碼美化已是例行公事。這種潤飾可能很輕微——提亮色澤、梳理散亂的頭發或是去掉粉刺；也可能很夸張——減掉10或20磅體重、增加幾寸身高或者抹掉所有皺紋和瑕疵，只要使用Adobe公司的Photoshop軟件這支修圖師的魔杖，就能輕易完成這一切。

“問題逐一修整后，馬上你就能修出一個芭比娃娃了，”漢尼·法里德說。他是達特茅斯學院計算機科學教授，也是一名數碼鑒證專家。

然而來自法國、英國及挪威的女權主義立法委員認為這是一個問題，并希望對經過數字處理的圖片加以標簽。去年六月，美國醫學協會正式通過了一項關于個人形象及廣告的政策，強烈要求廣告商及其他人士“勸阻過分不實的修圖行為，以免大家對外表形象產生不切實際的期望”。

法里德博士稱，他在歐洲閱讀了這份關于照片標簽的提案，對之十分感興趣。他說，把照片分成“處理”或“未經處理”這一做法似乎過于一刀切了。

法里德博士和達特茅斯學院計算機科學博士生埃里克·齊提議使用一種軟件工具，它可以測量時尚美容照片經過多大程度的修改，從極其細微到極大修改共分為一至五級。他們的研究發布在去年12月份的學術期刊《美國科學院院刊》上。

廣告和時尚雜志盛行對圖像進行理想化及數字化的處理，這一情況引人憂慮，而他們的研究工作意在提供一個技術手段來對抗這一現象。研究指出，女士們，尤其是年輕女性，出現飲食失調及對體型的擔憂，與這些大量潤色的照片不無關系。……