Photoshop's a beach

Click to see what a designer giving up on life really looks like.

We usually leave Photoshop hack work to the professionals, but couldn't help but notice the Yahoo! design staff took a vacation on this one. Stretch before going into the water, people. It could save your life.

Other Photoshop of Horrors: 6 Foursquare Badges That Don't Exist, but Should; Failure to Launch; Soda Chop; The Tao of Photoshop.

Speedo-tip to Stern-o at RP.

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What I Learned from American Cheerleader

Found this ad in a copy of American Cheerleader that our old Training Project Manager used to receive. Why did he receive American Cheerleader? I don't know. What does our Training Department do with American Cheerleader? Well, a big part of training is teamwork, so perhaps it's a reference tool. Why was I reading American Cheerleader? Let's just say, some trips to the bathroom take longer than others.

After looking at this ad for a while, most of it eventually made sense to me, but have a look see at what hung me up.

1) Now the ad placement makes perfect sense. It's a cheerleading sneaker in a cheerleading magazine. Score one for Power Cheerleading Shoes.

2) With all of the logos at the bottom and the headline dominating the top half of the picture, it took me a while to figure out exactly what the brand was and what the shoe was called. But this is a magazine for cheerleaders, so I'm guessing most of them would know. Push.

3) Why is there some overly serious guy in a black on black suit so awkwardly presenting this shoe to the cheerleading ether? Wait, that must be Choreographer/Director Wade Robinson noted in a tiny font above the picture and again in the fourth largest font on the page below the subhead. Again, I'm guessing cheerleaders would get this, but it still looks weird. I feel this could've made more sense, but Push.

4) One feature they don't note in the copy is the sneaker's ability to help you levitate other sneakers. A dodgy PhotoShop job has perched the sneaker perfectly on Choreographer/Director Wade Robinson's fingertips. Ah, PhotoShop, hand-in-hand with Stock Photos makes our creative lives so much easier as we heap hours of time onto our graphic designers. But at times people can get way too PhotoShop happy or simply hack up an image in the interest of trying to make something work. Know when to stop and you're Matisse. Forget that good art means eventually putting down the brush and you could end up with something that looks like plastic surgery addict Jocelyn Wildenstein (warning: freaking frightening cat lady).

In the end, this ad for Power Cheerleading Shoes works for this magazine and this market, but a few tweaks (like with most art) could've made it much better. I wish the same could be said for The Big Bang Theory. ZING! Honestly, I want those 10 minutes of my life back. Not one laugh. Not one laugh. It's supposed to be a freakin' comedy. I'm sorry. I got carried away. But seriously, please cancel it. Give me reruns of Hee Haw or Quincy M.E. with Jack Klugman or something. Okay, I'm done.

-Captain Awesome, Copywriter

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From the Intern Sweatshop: Missle Fail.

Say cheese, missile! Recently, Iran claimed to have test fired seven missiles as part of its “Operation: Big Scary Weapons” program, releasing a photo of four of the missiles blasting off into the deep blue Persian sky.

But wait! Apparently that’s one missile too many. Agence France-Presse got their paws on the picture from Sepah News, a website belonging to the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, showing four missiles, while the Associated Press had one with only three. Something’s not kosher here, Iran.

The photos had been digitally altered. Two of the missiles appear to have identical smoke trails. It seems Iran has been developing their Photoshop skills alongside beefing up their weapons.

Immediately, as it tends to do on the "Internets," more experienced photoshoppers flooded cyberspace with their own remixes of the photo, featuring everything from various Star Wars characters, looney tunes, the infamous LOLcats, and my personal favorite, Slim Pickens riding the bomb from Dr. Strangelove.

Iran has not yet made any official word on the photo. The photo on Sepah was inexplicably replaced with the three missile version. There are noticeable differences. That truck, for example. How did that turn into a missile? Maybe it’s a Transformer.

It leads one to think, is Iran so desperate to make world headlines that they resort to the same tactics as the supermarket tabloids? Is Batboy their doomsday device? Has President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad been airbrushed in any pics?

The media is not unfamiliar with spotting altered photos. There’s some changes made in almost everything nowadays, from alien sightings, to movie posters, to my personal collection of Victoria’s Secret catalogs (I’m shopping for my girlfriend’s birthday, I swear).

It is only more salt on some humiliating wounds. While a nuclear threat is something to be wary of, it’s hard to take serious when Iran’s President claims the Holocaust didn’t happen and that nuclear weapons are a “peaceful” policy for a country whose main religion is against it.

Tsk, tsk. Changing photos to make your babies look better? Don’t worry, Mr. Ahmadinejad, I’m sure Hugh Hefner can identify.

--Aditya Desai, Intern

Last time on the Intern Happy Funtime Candy Factory: American Automakers Pas Gas

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If This Were Advertising

(Click photo to enlarge.)

Here's a picture of the G-8 summit leaders I found in yesterday's Baltimore Sun. I thought, That's a poorly orchestrated picture. Then I realized, it looks poorly orchestrated, well, because it is. It's not an advertisement where all of the "right" looking people are put in the proper places and where there's an equal balance of gender, ethnicity, ages and body types. Perhaps I've been working in advertising for too long, but here are a few things I'd change if this were actually an ad:

1) Everyone's face would look like (Oh, I only had my lunch break to work on this, so I neglected to look up all of the names of the particular world leaders in the picture, but apparently neither did the guy who wrote the caption.) the guy on the far left--actually happy to be there, although he might tone down the smile just a little.

2) Dmitry Medvedev (the third guy from the left) would not look like a ski jumper.

3) George W. Bush would look less like his boat is listing to the right.

4) The 4th guy from the right would be LOOKING AT THE CAMERA! (unless this were the cover for an alt. rock album.)

5) The only woman in the photo would not look like she's about to tip over, unless of course she was leaning on a "buddy." In which case she'd have a forearm leaning on said buddy's shoulder and would not have her shoulders slumped forward.

6) The UK's Gordon Brown and friend on the far right, I'm okay with them, because at least they're interacting. "Pst, that guy's about to take a picture. Pat me on the back and look like you're laughing at something I just said."

7) And you probably don't put the five-foot-tall Russian guy next to Canada's at least six-foot-tall Stephen Harper.

Now let's talk about diversity.

8) White, white, white, white, white, Japanese (notice how he's near the center--nice placement), white, white, white. Okay, if this were an advertisement, you'd have at least one African-American! (Or for the sake of an international summit--African.) And you'd also have someone Hispanic or Latin American. Now the European Union could shout, "But hey, Spain is part of the EU!" True, but it only counts if the Spanish guy is actually in the picture! Once again he could be, but thanks to the lazy caption guy, that could be Taylor Hicks shaking hands with Jamie Farr for all I know.

9) You'd also have more than one woman. With 9 people in the photo, you'd probably have four or five and at least one would look like the Go Daddy girl, the blond from Battlestar Gallactica or 7 of 9.

10) If this were an ad for AARP, your age group would be pretty on point, but they'd all be playing tennis or walking on the beach. Otherwise your group would fall somewhere between the cast of The Office and the cast of The OC.

See how they even Photoshopped in the ocean there? Nice.

11) And finally, a graphic artist probably would've cropped out or Photoshopped the markers on the ground, put there to ensure every world leader would be equidistant.

But there's reality and there's advertising reality. Now if only reality would take some notes.

--Captain Awesome, Copywriter

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Wanta Fanta? Not if it's going to do that to me.

It's official: Fanta is to the soft drink industry what its ads are to Photoshopping.

"I'm not bad. I'm just Photoshopped that way."

On a positive note, good to see that Amy Winehouse has reinvigorated her career. At least she's got perspective, which is more than we can say for her fellow Fantana.

By way of: PsD.

Speaking of Photoshop: Redbook hates Faith Hill just the way she is.

M.M.McDermott, ACD/Copywriter/Clone Tool

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Friday Ad Haiku: Adobe Photoshop

I'm feeling pretty free and airy today. Like a summer's eve. I'm feeling like a 5-7-5 for one of the best tools in the ad shed:

Making it shiny.

Smoothing away the ugly.

Make us pretty, please.

(and oldie but goody from Jezebel)

Feel free to add your own Photoshop haiku.

M.M.McDermott, ACD/Copyguy/Photoshop Disciple

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