How The Presidential Candidates Will Look In 4 Years: See Photos

The gurus at PopPhoto have digitally altered photos of John McCain, Barack Obama, and Hillary Clinton to show how they might look after four years of holding the most stressful job in the country.

Below are photos of each candidate, and an explanation of how PopPhoto achieved the aged look (click here for larger versions of the images):

Aging takes time, even when you make it happen artificially with software. Each candidate took about four hours of retouching. To mimic the ravages of time, we did the following:

- Used the Burn and Dodge tools to deepen wrinkles and paint in age spots.
- Cloned the eyebrows and moved them lower.
- Used the Liquify filter to hollow out cheeks, make jowls, thin out lips, and enlarge ears and noses.
- For Clinton and Obama, brought in forehead wrinkles from separate photos and used the Match Color tool to blend them in.
- For Obama, painted in gray hair on top of his current hair; for Clinton, desaturated with the Sponge tool to make her grayer.

Comments

[bobdob]

Actually, the one of McCain is wrong. The pennies on his eyes are missing.

[raw915]

...and where are the daisies?

[LimeRindLeader]

Hilarious! Hahahahahaa. Pennies, classic.

[piul05]

Chill out! Other posters are correct when they say darker skinned people, overall, age more slowly - that's due to the amount of melanin their bodies produce. Evolutionary, an increase in that pigment is what protected the human skin in very sunny climates, having also the added bonus of being more resistant to wrinkles. Of course, environmental and health factors can alter the rate at which one ages, but that does not invalidate this basic fact.

As to the pictures, they are not really correct - apart from the fact that Obama's skin would age differently from that of McCain and Clinton, the age bracket is different too. One would expect a steeper decline from 71 to 75 - as well as from 60 to 65 - in relation to 46 to 50.

[kennedy]

Da- Obama looks like he!!. There is no coming back from that. All of you young people are going to go screaming for the exits.

[Kenji]

Huh?

[EbonBear]

Well, that was mildly interesting from a technical POV. I doubt Obama would age that much though. Black people tend to wrinkle less and later (something to do with skin chemistry) and, even with a lot of stress, people don't tend to age that severely between 46 and 50.

Hillary looks much as you'd expect a woman in her mid-sixties to look.

McCain, well, he looks like he's just been dug up.

[AthenaDelphi]

EbonBear writes: "Black people tend to wrinkle less and later...so­mething to do with skin chemistry.­"

If that isn't a freakin generalization the kinds of which we're fighting against, I don't know what is. You might have just said "Black people tend not to learn...so­mething to do with their brain chemistry" or "Jewish people always have money....s­omething to do with their noses."

Everyone is different and shouldn't be labeled with group characterizations.

Now if you have a specific medically peered reviewed study that backs up your assertion, please give us the link, otherwise this is just nonsense.

Now for some fun: Any one of these 3 candidates, when they leave DC for vacation, could go to the same plastic surgeon Pelosi went to and have some work done so they won't look that way. Amazing what cosmetic surgery can do for you now adays.

[RealityZone]

EbonBear is correct. EbonBear is addressing physical differences between the races, not intellectual or mental. Black skin differs in color from white skin, does it not? It's obvious to all that whites age horribly compared to all other races. I think Obama will look fine, Hillary will look terrible, and McCain will look dead.

[EbonBear]

Actually, I do. Unlike intelligence or money, this one is medically proven. British Medical Journal: http://clinicalevidence.bmj.com/ceweb/conditions/skd/1711/1711_background.jsp

[bubbainca]

You know there are lot of diseases out there that some races are more prone to than others. Did you know that an Asian blood cancer patient has a higher probability of getting a matching bone marrow from another Asian as opposed to another white person.

You know... your reaction reminds me of the press's reaction to Obama's "typical white person" comment. He was actually defending his grandmother and saying that "... my grandmother isn't racist or anything..­. she is just.. you know... a typical white person. You tell me what's wrong with that statement and who could possibly get offended by it.

I know you don't belong to that camp, but the problem is the same. People have stopped reading, listening and thinking. They just reflexively latch on to some phrase and it just makes it hard for regular well meaning folks to state a fact that *isnt even offensive* (even if it weren't true, a generalization on propensity to wrinkling is hardly offensive)

[RealityZone]

Agreed. Obama doesn't have "white man's disease", as I call it, the rapid aging that white ppl go through.

I'd say an Asian looks 20 years younger than whites on average. Blacks are perhaps even better off. As Oprah Winfrey said "Black don't crack.".

[McLaren]

C'mon. Barack is just your typical half-white person.

[willfarnaby]

Has anybody had the horrific misfortune of making their way up to the attic and seeing what Bush looks like now, i.e., viewing the picture of Dorian Grey?

[klandish]

Forget the painting in the attic, in real life he's aged 15 to 20 years in 8. Couldn't have happened to a nicer guy.

[Yokel]

swell fellow...

[Peteyman]

I don't take this crap seriously, but I must admit....

Out of the three, McCain looks the scariest.

[thirdgo]

You know, this is crapola.

[Canadienne]

Oh please.

Isn't there anything better to report on?

[kylie]

Love it!

Should give one pause!

[suntzu]

The premise of the article gives away the whole point:

How can we even think of giving the most stressful job in the country -- indeed the world -- to a guy who is entering his 8th decade, was a prisoner of war for nearly 6 years, and is a cancer survivor? When George Washington became president he was 57. The job was a lot less stressful and complex than it is today with events happening at warp speed.

We already had a president who was dysfunctional halfway through his administration, partly due to aging problems (Reagan/Al­heimer's).

Are we crazy as a nation? Don't bother to answer.

[delysia]

Obama's image, in particular, is totally unrealistic. There is no way he will age that much in four years. He will likely be in his 60s or 70s before his first wrinkle shows.

[dearpru]

As my hairdresser says, "Black don't crack." And she should know.

[uffa]

It's also because he'll only be fifty. He has so few lines now, they had nothing to enhance so the photo just looks like bad stage make-up. And he won't be gray like that. There will be very little change.

[PaigeInPhilly]

Black dont crack...yo­u are right.

as for MCain there just needs to be a skeleton head next to that picture.

LOL

that was mean...
ahhaha

[TERRYKEITH4]

Yes, but you do have a point there.

[kennedy]

(60's or 70's??)

That would be Obama in 4 years. Look at Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, LBJ and even Nixon. The WH ages the he!! out of you. Even lazy as- Bush looks worse for wear. And how many vacations did his lazy behind have? It seemed like every other weekend he was in Crawford.

[TERRYKEITH4]

Bush looks worse because he gets drunk almost everyday.

[harriscrl3]

Sorry but I dont see Obama having that frown. He has too much of a calm funny and unflapple disposition. Besides he works with people he is a man of solutions and compromises. Hilary will be fighting tooth and nail so she'll age more rapidly cause it will be a drain on her emotionally and John McCain will be bombing and having senior moments so I expect the onset of senility or alzheimers for McCain.

Carol

[kennedy]

Hillary is one with solutions and compromises. Ask her fellow senators.

And she will fight like he!! for all of us. That is what I want in President. In a time of war or peace.

Obama is the one with NYC million dollar ad slogans and no solutions or compromises.

[raw915]

Hillary's image is all wrong. In four years, her plaster-master face will be just as now. "Death Becomes Her." :o)

[Peteyman]

I started to actually read your post, and actually consider an intelligent debate about who would be better.

Until I read your last sentence.

[McLaren]

Solutions and compromises? With the most liberal voting record on the Hill, I'd say he's the last person who could claim either solutions or compromises. But as I think of it, perhaps his "solution" will be to wipe Israel off the map, and his "compromise" will be to compromise American sovereignty and security. I stand corrected.

[Sal123]

What a ridiculous thing to say. Hillary voted for the Iraq war, then she voted in Kyle-Lieberman for a hostile position against Iran, and just the other day she actually said she'd "totally obliterate" Iran. Who says "totally obliterate" about another country? She thinks she's Napoleon, or she has the mind of a 13 year old playing video games. She obviously has no concept of war and if anyone would put us in another bad position, it's Hillary. I don't know where you ppl get off making up absurd lies about Obama and then completely ignoring Hill's real life actions.

[suigeneris]

Not only is Obama not going to wrinkle as much because of his race, but they're applying an aging algorithm based on them all starting at the same age, and they're not. McCain is at least a decade older than Hillary, and Obama is three decades younger than McCain.

Silly.

[JLee]

I know! I'd place the four-years-later version of Obama at sixty years old at least. The older version of McCain looks... dead. Anyone want to vote for McCain, better take a good hard look at the second on the ticket because that's likely to be your president for much of the term.

[mheister]

Race notwithstanding (generalizations are easy to make, but remember Obama's mother was white), the typical person doesn't change that much between the ages of 48 and 52, barring some seismic event or unusual stress. The only way he looks this much older in four years is if he's stuck with a presidential burden as daunting as the Civil War or the Great Depression.

HRC's not likely to allow that many wrinkles. If I had to guess, I'd say she's going to cyphen a small chunk of her millions into Botox or plastic surgery.

[JLee]

Remember, if Obama does make it to the Oval he's going to inherit a huge mess courtesy of Bush & Co. Suddenly the 4-years-on photo looks more and more realistic.­..

[Flick08]

Yep, that's so true. Anyone can look at pictures of themselves and notice that their appearance barely changed from say 18-22 but if you've reached 40+ you probably noticed a larger change from say 30-34 or 36-40 than a four year span when you were in your 20s.

I think Hillary looks pretty good for her age but 4 yrs on her is going to look very different than 4 yrs on Obama.

[ggmome]

Looks like McCain has already been 'botoxed'. He and wife, look like 'charter menbers' of the s t r e c h e d face society. Stiff as she is, I wouldn't doubt that staples are holding her together. A real tighty...

[Berynice]

This is the most absurd article on Huffington yet. And most are quite good. Anyway, the darker your skin the less you wrinkle, it's a chemical thing. Obviously the photoshoppers were white people. Do you have any people of color working on this? gads1

[americanwomaninpa]

Ever see Oprah without makeup? She looks pretty old! She looks older than Hillary!

[phoenics]

Oprah without makeup looks older than Hillary without makeup? You must be Bill Clinton then, to have seen Hillary without makeup.

Your comparison is moot otherwise.

[preatorius]

Oprah is ten years older than Obama. Her problem is the heavy makeup that she wears. it it harsh on skin of any color.

[TERRYKEITH4]

No she doesn't. You lyer. And you've never seen HRC without makeup. You're comparing a person wearing makeup all the time to one without makeup. Wouldn't want to see what you look like. You sound jealous of Oprah. Bet you're a white person who does any and everything you can to try and stop black people from exercising their civil rights. You couldn't stop Oprah though, huh? So now she's ugly to you. Go some where and blow up!

[extina]

Obama must be taking the job most seriously judging by how much more he's aged. He looks at least 8 yrs older, Haglady looks about 4 years older (or exactly the same depending on what time of day it is) and McCain barely changes.