David Bailey Joins Katie Grand, Peter Lindbergh in Reaction Against Airbrushing August 20, 2009 2:27 pm >> Last year, there was a huge push for more diversity in fashion, culminating in the publication of Vogue Italia's all-black July 2008 issue. Unfortunately, attention on that issue has waned this year, even though there is still much work to be done; now, the issue du jour seems to be what has become a common practice among fashion magazines: heavy retouching.Katie Grand, who while at POP was a huge proponent of the "super glossy" look, has since reigned in her reliance on Photoshop. Of her first issue of LOVE, which came out in February, Katie told Interview, "It's not so retouched. I just wanted to take pictures of iconic people without redrawing them."
Fashion Magazines With Less Retouching: The Future or a Current Fad? May 28, 2009 4:38 pm >> In the March 2008 issue of Vogue, premier retoucher of fashion photographs, Pascal Dangin, tweaked a total of 144 images, from ads to editorial spreads, and in The September Issue, which focuses on the making of Vogue's September 2007 issue, Anna Wintour definitely displays a reliance on retouching, asking Mario Testino to superimpose cover girl Sienna Miller's head from one shot onto her body in another shot, and requesting that a cameraman's gut from an editorial shot be diminished, to Grace Coddington's dismay: "Everybody isn't perfect in this world. It's enough that the models are perfect."