Good morning!! I recently learned that some of the major bloggers (no names disclosed) out here photoshop their cuticle lines-- not their cutes, themselves, but the area around them, giving them a perfectly clean look usually achieved by a brush and acetone (right?). It's been upsetting to some, under the argument that nothing's real and how does one compete with someone who photoshops out the flaws; it's seen as cheating. The playing field is not level.
I suppose it's a question of what you want your blog to be in the first place. Is it a competition for you, or are you strictly in it to have fun? I will tell you when I started, I wanted to be big, and some of you know how wrapped up in and discouraged by the passive aggressive competition of the blogworld I got. It wasn't pretty, and while I think, in this female-dominated world, the competitive tendency is always there, reigning that in makes the whole journey so much more enjoyable. I think we all get that, otherwise we wouldn't still be here. But, we all have our moments, public or not.
I don't follow many major blogs, but it does not bother me if some of these gals photoshop. First of all, I'm sure it is a whole new ballgame once you reach a certain point. The more PR contacts you make, the more collections you're under the gun to swatch, depending on what kind of time you have (because we've all got lives beyond painting our nails) maybe it's faster and easier to clean up via computer. It's certainly not as hard on the nails. Perfection as such may be a way of combating the negativity that the internet is notorious for. The more out there you are, the higher the chances internet meanness is going to rear its ugly head. If you give them perfection, what is there to put down?
I get the sentiment, though, really. But we all have a unique flavor to our blogs, and if someone wants the perfection in her photos a computer can offer, well, more power to her. Each of our blogs is unique and personal, and we all have or own flavor. A nice photo is, well, nice, but nothing makes up for good, genuine content. For my part, I photoshop, in small doses. I fix bubbles, specks, hair/fur (which is in abundance, thanks to my Sal Pal), if it isn't too much of a hassle, little things I didn't catch until they showed up in high resolution. I also adjust the lighting from time to time. Is that dishonest, or is it maximizing my pictures to their best? They're still mine. It's still work I've done.
As for the big league gals... they've gotten to where they are through far more than their perfect smile lines. And what constitutes a big name, anyway? Is it all perspective? A four-digit GFC count? Just curious.
Thanks for reading! Filed under "rant" simply because I don't want to create a new tag every time I have a deep thought. lol.
Signed, Happily Photoshopping in City League <3 <3
I've realized that I have "normal girl nails/cuticles" and will never have "blogger girl nails/cuticles." I'm not even willing to compete. I want to show the polish I love and have genuine followers, whether it's 4 or 40. I had to make a decision that I would be doing this for fun and not business or competition. I don't know if I'll ever get products to review but then again, maybe I don't want to? Hardly anyone ever gives an accurate review and I don't want the pressure. Plus, I'm not that skilled in Photoshop and my cuticle line will never be perfection! Haha
ReplyDeleteSeriously! I wouldn't even try. Is it absolute precision with the cursor? I don't know. Good photoshopping is an art in itself.
DeleteI have to admit, I touch up too. Bubbles, hairs, polish on my fingers. Sometimes if my cuticles are very uneven or scaly I'll touch them up too.
ReplyDeleteI don't think my touch ups make my fingers look unrealistic or perfect, and I intentionally keep my imperfections. I'm working on fixing my cuticles physically so that one day I won't have to touch up at all. Until then, I'm sticking with Picmonkey!
I just discovered the retouch tools on Picmonkey.com so I use those to get rid of hairs and weird things left behind (why can't I see those with the naked eye!?) haha! I don't think that's unrealistic at all!
DeleteI touch up some of mine too I don't think it's a bad thing, unless it removes the whole fun of it and you don't even recognize the polish when you see it in real. I guess it depends for everyone
DeleteI'm totally going to check this picmonkey out.
DeleteBeing a perfectionist, it is hard for me to feel like I am worthy of having a blog because I was introduced to them by reading the "big dogs" first. Heck, you can't google a polish without seeing Scrangie! I felt like I would NEVER be as great as them....and I was right. Their photos look like art and I really appreciate them...and of course, envy them. I am a recovered cuticle picker - I picked for over 15 years. I picked when I was nervous, bored, worried, driving, working, talking to people, etc. I always had at least one cuticle that was bleeding (TMI??) so I am the last person I thought would have a blog. Finally, about a year ago, I bribed myself to quit with a Chanel polish and succeeded. I DID IT! and now I have a nail blog. I have learned to be happy with what I have now because it's way better than what I had. I still enjoy reading the "perfect nail" blogs, but I am happy to see blogs that are more "real" too. Oh, and yes, my MAC has a little retouch tool that I use if I have a big ugly imperfection, but the tool isn't as easy to use as Photoshop - or so I assume. I can't just make a straight line with it - but I wish I could! Maybe I should check out "Picmonkey" ???
ReplyDeletePicmonkey is really easy to use, if you ever feel inclined to use it. It has touch up tools, yes, but what I love it that they have a "fade" option to tone down the effect and allow your natural fingers to show through. I usually fade mine a lot, I hate looking fake.
DeleteAhh, I love reading how blogs were created as a result of a personal triumph. Very cool, Essie. <3
DeleteHave you noticed when you type the name of any given polish into your browser it gives you the Scrangie option before you get the whole name typed? Incredible.
Eeeh... Who cares if those girls use Photoshop?? Can't believe that anyone would be upset over it!! It's really too bad that we, females, are so competitive and jealous of each other :( I'm pretty proficient in PhotoShop but i don't bother too much, I'm just lazy!! I don't want to spend all day working on pictures. My blog is supposed to be fun, not work! I, like you, erase little hairs or minor imperfections with the help of computer. I also adjust lighting, only to make the colors more true to their real look. And if my cuticles don't look perfect.. well, they look real! I still have to see a healthcare worker with perfect nails!! Good post girlie!
ReplyDeleteThanks, Gosia! <3 I'm honestly not in love with every photo I put up, far from it. Sometimes I google my polishes to see how my swatches compare and SOMETIMES I think mine look a little terrible. But that doesn't concern me to the point where I'm going to slave over photoshop. I spend enough time blogging as it is. ;)
DeleteI will admit that I do very minor editing on my photos, just fixing little hairs or bubbles, or tweaking the colour setting to make it more true-to-life. I have no problem with people touching up their photos; as long as it's done well I find that I pay more attention to the nails themselves than the surrounding cuticles and polish lines. Great post! :)
ReplyDeleteExactly. It's not about your (or anyone's) fingers, it's about the pretty colors on them. :)
DeleteI don't photoshop even though I'm a trained graphic designer for the simple fact that my blog is the blog of a mommy. I don't compete to get free stuff. I blog to provide information to other women in fast paced lives who want something fun on their nails to be achievable. But I do get why others do photoshop....you hit it on the nail. It's the flavor of your blog. If someone hates that my cuticles aren't perfect there are plenty of other blogs for them to hit up. Another brilliantly written and executed blog post. Keep 'em coming!
ReplyDeleteThanks, C <3 <3 I think if we all took a step back we might realize, like Fingers says a ways down, that we don't really even need to... but a few of us (myself, included) have a bit of a perfectionist streak and there you have it. I've come to the realization that my blog is total fluff aimed at no one in particular and that there is a tremendous amount of sheer polish swatches up in here and I think it's highly awesome that you gals care enough to comment on my various shades of pearl white... lol. Where was I going with this? I don't know. It is, of course, the realness that makes us unique.
DeleteThis is really thoughtful and well written. My nails are short and stubby. I am never going to be able to grow them because of what i do. It doesn't bother me. However lots of people don't even bother to look past this, to see actually what i have got on my nails. I blog for myself and not to have perfect nails but it hurts when people comment on your photographs saying "your nails are ugly" because they see nails that in most cases have been photoshopped as the norm.
ReplyDeletePeople have actually gone through the trouble to comment that your nails are ugly? That is horrible. People are so rude, it's ridiculous.
DeleteThanks, Kerrie <3 I think we're all pretty ballsy to put ourselves out there on the internet like we do. People can be awful, that's for sure. I had a very mean comment on a photo I put on pinterest, but that's a totally public and uncontrollable entity, kind of like the youtube of pictures. For someone to take the time to comment on your own personal blog in such a manner is just beyond ridiculous and they clearly have more problems than just being mean. You have cute little nails and more followers than lots of us so you're clearly doing something right. <3 <3
DeleteWhat upsets me is that people are ok with blogs doing this without the disclosure. I wouldn't have such a problem with it if people said "hey I photoshop my cuticle lines" Then there is honesty involved. I really don't care if people think I'm stupid for being upset at this but I feel it is a form of cheating and lying. If that makes people hate me so be it. But for blogs like Fashion Polish, Scrangie etc-wouldn't you feel a little bit cheated if you found out their "perfect nails" was all a lie and computer shopped? Why do we emulate this kind of perfection when it is computer generated? Why can't we be happy with what we do ourselves with no help from Apple. I don't photoshop out hairs or bubbles-what you see is what you get. Why do you feel it's even necessary to do that and tell yourself it's ok? Why can't you be happy with the job you did and if bubbles happen, that's life. I think that is being a little hypocritical. I don't want to review polish for the big companies this is not what I am upset over. I don't want free polish. I buy what I want to wear. My issue is that the "big blogs" are seen as "the authority" on all things polish and it's all a lie. If you photoshop you should disclose it just as you do when you get free stuff for review.
ReplyDeleteI posted my link on facebook and one of the gals who responded said she thinks it's more of a perfectionist thing. I'm inclined to agree with her, especially when it comes to the polish itself. The pictures should be about the polish, and I like to make the polish look as good as possible and eliminate things that distract from that (fur, dust, a sloppy cleanup job on my part, a nick from playing too rough with the cats). My aim at this point is not to have PR requests flooding my inbox (I contacted one company a couple months ago, more out of curiosity than anything else) but I do want a pretty picture. And that's not to say that a completely unretouched photo doesn't look great. Your blog is a testament to the fact that it does. Maybe perfectionism is a byproduct of insecurity, I'm not sure. I do know that none of the gals who have admitted to retouching here have unnatural looking fingers. Out of curiosity, I checked out a few of the big names, just to see if I could tell if a job has been done... and I can. It doesn't look natural and it doesn't showcase the polish to its full advantage, imo. Maybe that's part of why I never followed them or sought them out in the first place. As far as emulating that kind of perfection, honestly, it never occurred to me, mostly because I don't have the time or the inclination to really go after my cutes with a vengeance. I remember reading something when I was younger about your cutes actually being there for a purpose, that being to safeguard against infection. As long as mine aren't hanging out all over the place all dry and stuff, they don't bug me. I try to keep them amply moisturized and call it a day. Once in a while I'll go after them with an orange stick, but that usually makes mine look worse, somehow.
DeleteI guess the gist of what I've now written a small novel about is that real is definitely better, and a certain amount of photoshopping doesn't take away from that. Nobody's my authority on polish but me... I get what I want and bloggers of all sizes have contributed to my lemmings about equally. Fwiw... I like Scrangie because we've got similar coloring, and her photos do look real; she's just better at it than 97% of us. Her writing's engaging, too, which without that you don't get my vote! lol. Well, I digress here. I totally appreciate your response and the fact that you're so real and engaging yourself in all facets of your blog make you one of my favorites. <3
They do it in magazines and no one Really gripes about that anymore...Idk. My job really robs my hands of moisture despite lotioning, so if my cuticles look gnarly, I blur them. But I make it a rule not to touch the polish. My last post I had glitter all over my skin...take it or leave it I guess. I dont see anything wrong with it.
ReplyDeleteI did one time photoshop a cut I had on my hand off...no one wants to see that right?
DeleteThat's kind of what I was getting at, that when you're asked to review things on a constant basis and you're very high visibility, there's got to be more pressure to be perfect, like the magazines. I think people do complain about magazine photoshopping, though, but we all know it happens so it's not really news anymore.
DeleteI think it's interesting that your rule is to not touch the polish... We all have our limits and that's another part of what makes our blogs unique, and it's neither right or wrong, it just is. :) One of my cats took a big piece out of one of my fingers right after I'd swatched a polish I'd been totally excited about, so the next morning, rather than put off the post for a while, I attempted to photoshop it out; to mild success. I felt like it was still glaring, even if it wasn't gross. The funny thing was that it became one of my most popular photos on pinterest and generated no meanness. Anyhoo... bottom line, I agree. :)
Doesn't bother me unless they photoshop out issues with the polish (i.e. making them look better than they are, adjusting the color to be further away from what it is IRL, taking out visible brush lines, adding in more glitter, etc). The only thing I edit on mine is cropping and at some times color balance to help it represent the color more accurately. I wouldn't mind getting a cheap (or free!) photo editor to fix some of the small things I see after photos though. Sometimes I don't see it until later when the mani is trashed and so it isn't good enough to post. To each their own though IMO. I like looking at the polish and for some of the the pictures are so outstanding (regardless of touch ups on the nail line) that I just look at them like art!
ReplyDeleteThere are some incredible photos out there, for sure. That's what I'm saying, too-- it's still totally someone's art. And you know, who'd have thought taking pictures of your nails would be so hard? My starter pictures are some of the worst on the internet. I'm not even joking. :p
DeleteI don't own Photoshop (too much $$) but I guess I don't really care if other bloggers out there are using to photoshop their cuticles to make them look clean. It's not real, but as long at they aren't changing the way the color actually looks or anything about the polish itself, I don't think it's a huge deal. I guess my biggest beef would be that it makes the rest of us feel inferior because our cuticles don't look as good, but.... I'm also not running a mega blog and hey, I'm human. This isn't my job or my life, but something I do in my spare time.
ReplyDeleteThe disclosure thing that was mentioned above is an interesting point, though. I guess I can see both sides-- if they're not actually touching the polish, does it matter, even if the rest of us feel inferior because our polishing skills aren't as "good"?
Of my MANY blogging inferiority complexes, lol, my cuticles aren't one of them, oddly.... I guess I've seen enough to convince myself that I'm as average as they come, and there's LOTS of average out here. I'm totally okay with that. There are some gals who take this pretty seriously, and like you said, this is something a lot of us simply do in our spare time (although I couldn't tell you how much time some of those gals actually spend on their photos... maybe it's less than we think and has more to do with the right lighting and equipment). It's all about what you prefer to read and look at, and what you want your own blog to be.
DeleteI think doing a normal clean up isn't that much work, if I had to do it with photoshop it would probably look bad because I don't really know how to do it. I do get questions if I photoshop my cuticles, it's funny because if you look at my blog you can see that sometimes my pictures have such good light that my hands look great, and sometimes the light is terrible or I'm having problems with my rheumatic disorder and then my hands turn a bit blue and my cuticles look worse. I must say it was really hard for my to upload my latest models own with CND blog post, you can see my rheumatic disorder so bad over there, just because everybody is having these perfect pictures. My friends convinced me that this is just who I am and the polish still looks good even if my hands have blue spots on it. Everybody should just do what they love and accept who they are. I just photoshop to add the name of my website and to make the pictures smaller.
ReplyDeleteI really like your blog and just keep on doing what you love :D
:) Thanks, D! :) I appreciate that, and I will. I'm with you on the normal cleanup vs. photoshop. I would have never noticed the rd, bless your heart. You've got some of the prettiest pictures out here. It totally is who you are, one way or another, and I don't wonder if it's a little bit of anxiety or ocd that compels some of these gals to photoshop like they do. It's been interesting for me to learn just how many of us suffer from anxiety or depression.
DeleteI have a little scratch on my ring finger in my most recent post, and I thought about shopping it out, but I didn't! Go me. lol. ;)
This is a great post!
ReplyDeleteI admit I felt pressure to be like the big girls out there when I started...I don't think I could handle the responsibility that comes with being one of them (I started this for FUN!), though. I will admit, though, that seeing that perfection has made me more conscious of learning how to paint better, cleanup, etc. And now it is like second nature! I mean, I am nowhere NEAR perfect...but less than a year ago, my idea of a clean mani was painting all over my fingers and picking it out in the shower. Now I can confidently paint my nails decently in a short time.
My point being, is that I suppose the perfectionist attitude of those big bloggers is what prompted me to make more effort for myself. Sometimes I go, wow, it is TOO perfect, and I may be a little disappointed if I saw a before and after PS photo, BUT only if they never admitted to Photoshopping! If they do, then I can more easily make a choice whether I want to use them as inspiration or not. And, just for the record, I do use PS - for nicks and cuts, dog hair, and a random spot of polish. If you look at my photos you will see I still color outside of the lines and I do not hide it all!
You know what kinda irritates me even more than that, though? Those big bloggers who do not respond to their readers, or only a select few. Sorry, but, you have your popularity because of your FANS, and once you get big, you don't just ignore them or pick and choose. If I did not love interaction with my readers I sure as hell would not be blogging. And that is not to say I have a lot by any means! But like someone above said, whether I have 4 or 40 followers, I appreciate every reader out there, whether they comment or not, and I sure as hell am gonna acknowledge them all and let them know I appreciate them!!!
I meant to hit reply. Reply is below. ;) Oooooops!
DeleteHaha, the shower bit is the dominant hand cleanup! :D I totally get your irritation at bigger bloggers who don't respond to their fans. That's another reason I hav't sought many big ones out, I suppose. When I started, I wrote to two gals whose blogs I really liked and admired. The bigger gal wrote back and encouraged me to ask her anything, whenever.
ReplyDeleteI will tell you that the best role model I've seen for reaching out to readers amidst the piles of swatches is Carly at Lacquered Lover. She responds to her comments, interacts with everyone in the groups she's in, is way down to earth, and has done nothing but grow. She's also great at helping baby bloggers gain readership. We comment because we want interaction. You know what I wonder sometimes, though, is if some of these gals who started for themselves, had absolutely no intention of having any interaction, and got huge through no fault of their own, and speak to their readers through their initial posts now and leave it at that because that's their nature. There seem to be a lot of us out here who suffer from anxiety or depression. What a funny little world this is, eh? Oh, and high five for coloring outside the lines. ;) I feel like my two most recent posts are my sloppiest in a while. ;p