MAKE UNDERS: HOW IT'S DONE

No two ways about it. Gwyneth Paltrow is beautiful in this picture. Perfect hair. Brilliant teeth. Flawless skin. Designer clothes tailored wonderfully. Stunning makeup and accessories. Even the background is made to match up with the tones in her clothing, and blue is her color. Even the lighting hits her just so to bring out the best in this pose.

Everyone should be so lucky.

Just remember, she's selling something. Be it a movie, a fragrance, a hair care product, or her own image and fame, she's selling something. The people who stand to profit with her are doing everything they can to make her the best spokesperson possible. No expense has been spared in making her look beautiful.

Unnaturally beautiful.

I'm not jealous and taking her down because I can't stand her. No, I'm telling you the plain truth. Normal people don't look that good in normal circumstances.

And nearly everybody is normal people. Gwenyth's not special. She's just assisted by a huge staff dedicated to making her look good.

We'll show you what we mean. Here's a picture we found of her. It's not very flattering, but we can make it much, much worse.

We start with her in some avant-garde fashion number which we find tragically bad. Her hair is done in an alluring prison camp style, accentuating her bony build and slightly dissonant eyes. There's a nice shine off her head that the airbrushing on the rest of the picture failed to eliminate.

We're going to change the lighting to simulate a really crappy fluorescent bulb, moving the light from a Paltrow-friendly blue to a vicious orange. Ouch. Next, we take the sheeny areas and enhance their reflectivity, like what happens to everyone else eho didn't apply enough pancake before the big photo shoot. Finally, the most brutal touch: an unsharp mask. The unsharp mask, in lay terms, basically un-does the softening and airbrushing that went in before and restores an image to its original focus and acuity. Or, in other words, makes her look like she did before anybody took airbrush in hand to eliminate flaws.

Yikes. Let's see them side by side.

Now, I wasn't entirely cruel. I left Gwenyth with a nice purple border in the first picture, which goes well with her outfit and the rest of the page. In the second one, it accentuates the conflict of color, but at least lets the thing merge with the rest of the page.

So, now I'm wondering... what does it mean if your vision of inner beauty doesn't have access to a full-time professional beauty staff? Would people have to see your inner inner beauty to truly appreciate you?

Back to the Make Unders

Return to Zzzptm Pictures

Return to Zzzptm Main Page