I feel that the most common use of digital manipulation occurs in the media as it relates to celebrities. Images are altered for the purpose of making them look better and in some cases for making them look worse. On the side of making them look better magazines, movie posters, and ads all have their subjects retouched to perfection in an attempt to be more appealing than their competitors. They aim for an ideal of beauty that no one could aspire to without the help of photo shop. On the opposite side magazines and celebrity news venues have been known to alter photos to make those same celebrities look bad. They are made to look heavier, older, or even placed on another persons body. As with making them more beautiful, this also is a means of attempting to increase sales.
Over all one could view these practices as non-harmful. Unfortunately I have seen these unrealistic images cause issues for friends with eating disorders. I have known girls that were close to being under weight that still felt they were “fat” and would point to a picture of a retouched model and say “She doesn’t have lumps/wrinkles/etc when bending a certain way.” It is very sad it has this affect and that we have such an idea of what is appealing that there is a need for those image edits.
When we see articles online with “Shocking Celebrity Photo shop!” it is usually pictures of famous people looking like normal human beings. I think it is unhealthy for our society to see people picked apart in such a way. It leads to real people feeling they are not good enough.
Below find links to before and after comparison articles.
Photoshop Sorcery: A Shocking Gallery Of Retouched Celebrity Photos
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/12/celebrity-photoshop-photos_n_3428033.html