I wanted to create a way of finding out what young adults thought of digital retouching and what their views were. With a little help from a genius website called Survey Monkey I created my questionnaire and published it on social media for people aged 13-25 to take part in.
These were the questions i asked:
How old are you?
How much digital retouching do you think is acceptable?
Do you consider Instagram to be digital retouching?
Do you think models in fashion magazines are real or honest representations of themselves?
which image do you prefer and why?
Here are my results:
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From creating this survey I have learned that most people ages 13-25 thought the removal of blemishes or slight breast enhancements were suitable adjustments. Surprisingly 11.76% of them thought models in magazines were real or honest representations of themselves and over 90% of people who took part in the survey said they preferred the original image, before any retouching, saying the model looked more natural and healthy.
This survey has helped me establish where most young people think the boundary should be for digital retouching. When I am editing and retouching my images I will try to keep the process to a minimum in order to showcase the models natural beauty and prevent further distortion for what people believe is a normal body.
If so many people prefer the image before editing. then why do we go to such extremes?, is it because it's a habit we just don't know how to break?