With the powerful tool of photoshop, do you think it has helped prolong the career for some models who in 10, 15 years ago, without the technology, would have been retired when their faces were no longer on top form?
Retouching has always been around, from smearing vaseline on the lens to hand-correcting images with a brush or 'spot' method.
we used to retouch as much, just in a different way.
reality is changed dramatically by the act of taking a picture. isolating one moment in time has got to be the most fundamental change to how we experience reality.Next to that retouching is just a very small alteration of our perception of an event or person.
Most models are just images to create a perception of a fantasy and people want that fantasy not reality . In my personal opinion one really doesn't look at models as an individual ... of course with some powerful exceptions in between who did and do manage to catch people's imagination ! ... most of them are quickly forgotten therefore retouching must be executed in order to keep that fantasy 'intact' ..... as long as possible ... that hasn't changed since fashion became a world of dreams and to dream about....