Is it live, or is it Memorex?  Are you old enough to remember  those commercials?  They were very popular, and played over and over on televsion.  However,  today the line might be: Is it real, or is it Photoshop?

I keep thinking about those Memorex ads, especially after seeing a Youtube video over the weekend. 

Here's the deal: last Friday, I wrote a light-hearted post on the Travels With Bella Figura USA blog, "Is It Bella Figura, or Photoshopped To Death?".  The post was about the photos people put on the web of themselves, and more specifically, my own "professional" (and Photoshopped) photo vs. my "little digital  travel pic" with zero retouching.

But then over the weekend, I stumbled onto this video which is all about the "controversy" regarding the Photoshop effect.  Well,  a good 2 1/2 million people have already seen the video.  But I was intrigued by it and decided to post it here - for others who might have missed it.

While every adult knows that magazine pics of celebrities are retouched; the video gets into some of the nitty gritty.

And a disclaimer;  we use Photoshop every day for our product photos; and I LOVE the technology.  But what we're doing is simplistic: resizing, cropping, zooming - really basic stuff.  And yes, the tech folks here know how to do a ZILLION more things with the technology  and have tried to teach me a few of the tricks (those confounded layers confuse me every time) but even having watched them at work, I was still amazed at the ease with which a professional photographer and "Photoshopper" can change an image.

So - is it style, or is it Photoshop?