By Sierra Filucci, Common Sense Media editor

Walk past a supermarket checkout stand near summertime and you can't help but see models and celebs in bikinis plastered across magazine covers. Tween favorites like Selena Gomez and Katy Perry appear all over the Internet in glamorous outfits with incredible hair and makeup. Ads on billboards, buses and subways display long-legged models selling everything from liquor to lipstick.

Kids are bombarded with images of men and women -- famous or not -- who look incredibly perfect. Too perfect, in fact. And that's thanks to photo editing, which, as many of us parents know, can eliminate a model's pimples, make a celeb's cellulite disappear and make legs longer, waists slimmer and erase wrinkles.

Pull Back the Curtain

But kids aren't always so savvy. Kids who see unrealistic bodies or faces or clothing -- especially on folks they admire -- can feel inadequate as a result. In fact, several studies have shown that reading women's fashion magazines or looking at images of models has a negative effect on women's and girls' self-esteem.

That's why it's important to teach kids about the reality behind the images that surround them. Empowering kids to see behind the photo spreads and the advertisements can help combat the negative effects of these images.

Add Your Voice

The good news is, some kids -- and even celebrities -- are talking back to the beauty and advertising industries and taking action to encourage more realistic images. Maine eighth grader Julia Bluhm recently started a petition (with support from Spark Summit) that garnered more than 25,000 signatures, asking Seventeen magazine for regular photo spreads that don't use Photoshop.

Celebrities (including Taylor Swift, Jessica Simpson and Britney Spears) have stepped up to show a more realistic image of themselves in photo shoots and online, and in doing so help pull back the curtain on the amount of retouching that goes on in Hollywood and beyond.

Not sure how to approach this subject with your kid? Here are some ideas:

Do a reality check. Make sure kids know that almost every photo in magazines and advertisements has been altered. Show examples of models and celebrities where the before and after examples are starkly different. (Pop Studio is a great site to help kids understand what goes on behind the scenes at a magazine, etc.)

Play "spot the Photoshop." See who can spot the retouching on any ads or photos you come across. (Search online for "Photoshop fail" and you'll come across some amazing examples of how poorly the tool can be used.)

Connect the dots. Discuss the difference between fantasy images and products being marketed. Talk about how photos are used to sell magazines, specific products, celebrities' brands and more.

Ask questions. Get kids to think about how images affect viewers (both boys and girls) and how images can distort our ideas about what's healthy or beautiful. What would your kids say to a friend who felt bad after looking at an unrealistic image? How could you encourage them to celebrate their inner qualities? What kinds of things besides looking at magazines or celebrity blogs can you do to make you feel good?

Look for backup. Help kids locate resources to take action. Find out how to sign or start petitions. Encourage kids to speak up about these images in their classrooms, through their social networks, and among friends. (Check out our list of sites that encourage social action.)

The message baby boomers have been shouting for a while is finally being heard across the generations: Beauty does not -- and for many, cannot -- be equated with flawless perfection.

While this movement toward authentic beauty was first fueled by millions of mid-lifers frustrated by anti-aging ad campaigns -- no, 15 is not the new 50! -- more and more young adults have joined the bandwagon. Together we are recognizing the negative impact that unrealistic beauty has on body image and self-esteem -- and together we are finally saying, "we have had enough."

The New York Times recently featured a story about a young girl from Maine, Julia Bluhm, who took a stand against unrealistic imagery in teen magazines. Using Change.Org to start an online petition, 14-year-old Bluhm targeted the fault-free faces that fill the pages of Seventeen. "I look at the pictures and they just don't look like girls I see walking down the street and stuff... they don't have freckles, or moles, anywhere on their bodies," Bluhm told the Times. "You can't, like, see the pores in their face, they're perfectly smooth. Their skin is shiny. They don't have any tan lines or cuts and bruises or anything like that." Promoted by Spark, a project that fights the sexualization of girls, her protest resonated with thousands of other everyday teenagers -- and their moms -- who joined together to support the cause.

The goal set out by the petition and a demonstration in front of Hearst Corporate Headquarters was to have Seventeen "commit to printing one unaltered -- real -- photo spread per month." ABC's Nightline covered Bluhm's day in New York City, including the meeting she had with Seventeen's editor in chief, Ann Shoket, who invited her to talk about the magazine's picture doctoring practices. While clearly an issue that applies to all glossy magazines -- Cindi Leive, Editor-In-Chief of Glamour recently told her readers that her photographers would no longer excessively alter their models, even if they requested it -- the event at Hearst highlighted the fact that perfect-looking photos make everyday girls feel inadequate. More importantly, the event caught the much-needed attention of a large group of women of all ages.

More buzz was created over this issue last week when a tweet was sent by AnnaLynne McCord, the 24- year-old actress from 90210. McCord took to Twitter to express her protest against the pressure to appear perfect. Posting an unaltered, cosmetic free self-portrait -- blemishes and all -- she wrote, "I woke up this morning and decided I'm over Hollywood's perfection requirement. To all my girls (and boys) who have ever been embarrassed by their skin! I salute you! I'm not perfect -- and that's okay with me!" Her message? It's time for everyone to see what is really behind the makeup, lights and cameras.

McCord's tweet parallels the sentiment expressed by an increasing number of celebs feeling cruelly scrutinized about their appearance. Did anyone catch the poignant plea made recently by Ashley Judd on NBC's Rock Center? Women like Judd and McCord are just two among a growing number of actresses speaking up against the criticism they receive for looking imperfect while being simultaneously judged as inauthentic if they do something about it -- a phenomenon I call the Beauty Paradox.

Objections to our culture's lack of authenticity have been growing over the years. In 2006, a model's transformation was graphically illustrated in the video Evolution of Beauty produced by Dove's Campaign for Real Beauty. Described as "Beast to Beauty in 60 Seconds," a model is shown going from 'real' to 'perfect' -- using time lapse photography, make-up, styling and photo retouching -- to make the point that the end result is manufactured, not natural. It's a video worth watching, and as of today, close to 15 million people have done so on YouTube.

Last year it was reported that three Oscar-winning actresses -- 36 year old Kate Winslet, 42 year old Rachel Weisz and 52 year old Emma Thompson -- had joined together to create an "Anti-Cosmetic Surgery League." While the actual formation of such a League has been questioned, Winslet, Weisz and Thompson have all been quite outspoken about cookie-cutter beauty and its impact on the aging celebs. Winslet told The Telegraph, "I will never give in. [Cosmetic surgery] goes against my morals, the way that my parents brought me up and what I consider to be natural beauty." Weisz agreed, saying, "People who look too perfect don't look sexy or particularly beautiful," And Emma Thompson added, "I'm not fiddling about with myself. We're in this awful youth-driven thing now where everybody needs to look 30 at 60." Surely these women can afford to take such a stand -- being so young (it's all relative) and beautiful (yes, also relative) -- but their attitude toward it all has been well received.

Let's not forget that psychologists and psychiatrists have weighed in on this issue as well. This year the American Medical Association showed their support by adopting a policy against the altering of photographs that promote unrealistic imagery. Extreme use of photoshop, the AMA reported, could lead to distorted ideas about body image and ultimately be psychologically harmful, especially to children and teens.

The point is, momentum for this movement toward authenticity has been growing from a multiple directions, from people of different disciplines and across generations.

Lastly, whatever one thinks of the new controversial HBO series Girls, and its very real looking star/writer/producer Lena Dunham, no one doubts the great pains she takes to display authenticity on the show. With seemingly no makeup or digital alteration, the series presents 20-somethings as far less than perfect in every way. Dunham courageously -- and often nakedly -- plays the role of the most awkward one among her close friends, almost exaggerating her physical flaws on camera to make her point. She is who she is and she represents how most "girls" truly are in the real world.

This movement -- this scream for authenticity -- is clearly not about eliminating beauty from our screens and pages. It's human nature to be fascinated with youthful vitality and attractiveness. Most likely we are hard wired to enjoy physical beauty -- just as we are attracted to beautiful performances by talented singers, dancers or professional athletes. Surely, this stand being taken by an increasing number of people of all ages isn't about negating the pleasures that come from beauty as a form of entertainment. It's about the popularization of these unrealistic standards and the demand they make on every men and women.

Perhaps we need to see authenticity as the goal for the everyday man or woman, leaving perfect beauty to cover girls, actors and celebs or anyone who chooses to be in the spotlight. The importance of this movement by teens, young adults and mid-lifers is to keep perfection and youth from being equated with beauty, so that this unrealistic equation doesn't leave us feeling inadequate if we don't achieve it.

For more information, please visit my website at www.VivianDiller.com and continue the conversation on Twitter at DrVDiller.

It's easy to make an online petition. It's more challenging to gather up supporters, go out in the rain and make your point in person.

But that's what Julia Bluhm, the 13-year-old behind the Change.org petition "Seventeen Magazine: Give Girls Images of Real Girls!", did this morning. Bluhm, her mother and several representatives of SPARK Movement gathered in front of the Hearst Tower, home to Seventeen, to protest the magazine's use of Photoshop and deliver her signatures to the magazine's executive editor.

"I've always just known how Photoshop can have a big effect on girls and their body image and how they feel about themselves," Bluhm told The Huffington Post. "You need to see something realistic -- you need to see a reflection of what truly represents a teenage girl nowadays."

Seventeen and the media in general, she said, fails to do that. So her petition, directed at Seventeen's editor-in-chief, asks that the magazine print one unaltered photo spread in each issue.

While the negative impact of Photoshop has been discussed by adults at length, it is clear that Bluhm's peers feel just as strongly. When she and a friend brought a magazine to school to show their friends, she said, it elicited the same reactions: "They agreed. A lot of them thought that the images were fake and they compared themselves to those images -- and it didn't make them feel good about their own bodies and their own skin."

The consequences extend beyond low self-esteem. Another SPARK Movement blogger on the scene, Crystal Ogar, explained that the negative health impacts, proven by the American Psychological Association, include "higher rates of depression, higher rates of self-harm and eating disorders."

And a skinny body, said SPARK Movement blogger Kaye Toal, is just one facet of the cookie-cutter image on the pages of teen magazines:

"The media that we're fed says that girls are sex objects and they have to be thin, white, heterosexual and cisgender, and that's a very narrow portion of women. Even the women who do fit that, dont fit this amazing perfected ideal because it simply doesn't exist."

Or, as Julia told us, "Nobody's photoshopped in real life."

See photos of Julia and her peers outside Seventeen and read (and sign!) her petition at Change.org.

UPDATE: After Julia delivered her petitions and chatted with editors at Seventeen, the magazine gave Jezebel this statement:

"We're proud of Julia for being so passionate about an issue — it's exactly the kind of attitude we encourage in our readers — so we invited her to our office to meet with editor in chief Ann Shoket this morning. They had a great discussion, and we believe that Julia left understanding that Seventeen celebrates girls for being their authentic selves, and that's how we present them. We feature real girls in our pages and there is no other magazine that highlights such a diversity of size, shape, skin tone and ethnicity."

PHOTOS:

Celebs, editors and health professionals have called on magazines to halt the excessive use of airbrushing for its negative impact on impressionable teen girls. Now teens themselves are joining the conversation, saying that enough is enough.

13-year-old Julia Bluhm submitted a petition through Change.org entitled "Seventeen Magazine: Give Girls Images of Real Girls!" Bluhm, a middle school student from Maine, writes that the constant ambush of overly Photoshopped images has caused her and her peers to develop low self-esteem about their own bodies:

Those “pretty women” that we see in magazines are fake. They’re often photoshopped, air-brushed, edited to look thinner, and to appear like they have perfect skin. A girl you see in a magazine probably looks a lot different in real life.

That’s why I’m asking Seventeen Magazine to commit to printing one unaltered -- real -- photo spread per month. I want to see regular girls that look like me in a magazine that’s supposed to be for me.

It's a point well-taken, considering more and more adults have begun to demand the same. Last June, the American Medical Association adopted a policy against the altering of photographs "in a manner that could promote unrealistic expectations of appropriate body image." In February, Cindi Leive of Glamour told readers that her magazine would take a stronger stand and ask photographers "not to manipulate body size in the photos we commission, even if a celebrity or model requests a digital diet." In March, Intelligent Life mag published an un-airbrushed cover of Cate Blanchett, using a photo that "is at least trying to reflect real life."

Of course, there is still plenty of Photoshop afoot. But to hear teen girls acknowledge the damaging effects of airbrushing themselves makes the issue more urgent -- "all the struggling girls all over America," writes Bluhm, are affected.

Read Bluhm's petition to Seventeen at Change.org and, if you feel so inclined, add your name to the 7,000 already listed. Do you agree with Bluhm's sentiments or even witnessed them firsthand? Let us know in the comments.

UPDATE: After Julia delivered her petitions and chatted with editors at Seventeen, the magazine gave Jezebel this statement:

"We're proud of Julia for being so passionate about an issue — it's exactly the kind of attitude we encourage in our readers — so we invited her to our office to meet with editor in chief Ann Shoket this morning. They had a great discussion, and we believe that Julia left understanding that Seventeen celebrates girls for being their authentic selves, and that's how we present them. We feature real girls in our pages and there is no other magazine that highlights such a diversity of size, shape, skin tone and ethnicity."

Click through our slideshow to see celebrities who've gone un-photoshopped.

We've seen some great magazine covers and fashion ads in the month of April, but we've also seen some great covers and ads ruined by bad Photoshop fails.

From thinning celebrity waists to adding extra limbs in retail circulars, it seems like obviously bad Photoshop fails popped up all over the place this month.

As this month comes to an end, we pay honor to some of the worst Photoshopping fails we've seen this April 2012.

Click through our slideshow and see just how out of hand it got!

Haven't we learned our lesson from every sci-fi movie ever that sexy robots are never our friends?

We all know that glossy magazine models are heavily Photoshopped, but Michael Oswald's work is beyond human. Oswald -- a photographer and graphic designer known by the moniker "MichaelO" -- digitally enhances photos of real women and transforms them into sci-fi super babes. His streamlined fantasy robots do not have wrinkles, body hair or cellulite, making them the perfect models for Swedish vodka or the next wave of Stepford Wives. These highly sexualized automatons, which he calls AmalgaMATEs, were created using Photoshop and digital painting techniques. In his words, his work is "photo-manipulation on steroids."

MichaelO's fembots walk the line between sexy and creepy, especially since they are not that different from the billboards and commercials we see every day. What do you think, readers? Do they turn you on or make you want to turn them off?

NEW YORK — Adobe is launching the latest version of its software package for designers and Web developers.

Adobe Systems Inc. unveiled Creative Suite 6 on Monday at an event in San Francisco. CS6 includes Photoshop, Illustrator and other programs.

Scott Blake makes incredible interactive portraits out of bar codes, illustrating how black-and-white data can come to resemble a personal connection. The Omaha-based artist creates convincing human expression out of symbols of commodity, depicting the strange relationship between who we are and what we consume.

Through this attention to detail Blake feigns a personal relationship with his subjects, which ultimately draws attention to the superficial and commercial nature of the relationship between icon and consumer. Although we feel like we know so many of the individuals Blake depicts, all we know of them is what they sell us. We asked Blake some questions about the process and motivation behind the project. Scroll down to see a slideshow of his work.

HP: When did you start this project and why have you continued with it?

SB: I started in '98 and it was inspired by the Y2K computer bug; I was living in San Francisco and it was the end of the world because of 0s and 1s. I was experimenting with Photoshop with creating my own halftone patterns. I really like Roy Lichtenstein's bending dot paintings, he would do this polka dot shading techniques -- I was trying to recreate that and I stumbled across a halftone pattern that was a bunch of lines that looked like a bar code. In 2007 when the iPhone came out with the bar code scanner it completely reinvented my work. I went around my studio with my iPhone and scanned all of the works I had made five years before. Hearing the scanner beep sort of verifies what I do.

HP: You have never created a portrait of someone you've seen in person. Why is that?

SB: I typically like to focus on the fact that I know these people only through their data. I have never met Oprah Winfrey but I've seen her in television, and that goes for a lot of people. They haven't met her in person but they are familiar with her product. All I really know are the products, the DVDs, the data that is encoded in each movie. You're just learning about a person's data stream, it's all 0s and 1s but we kind of think that it's a lot more than it is.

HP: You've mentioned that consumerism and celebrity are linked. How does art fit in with this relationship?

I am sort of interested in art as a commodity. Especially making art on the computer which to this day is considered a lesser medium. People used to joke about making art on Photoshop: "All you do is select a filter and it's done." I sort of take offense to that. I think you can be creative on a computer. My bar code work is commenting on digital art as a commodity. It is sort of poking fun at the fact that I'm trying to sell bar codes, which are these icons for buying and selling. And I'm sort of turning that on its head. Digital art isn't one of a kind, it isn't unique... there is no original. I can make infinite copies. So in a way I am addressing this new digital way of making and consuming art.

HP: Do you ever get bored of bar codes?

SB: Sometimes I get bored, but I find a new way to interact with them. I thought I might have stopped at this point but now we have QR codes, which are two dimensional bar codes. I just did a portrait that is completely interactive with smart phones. So I am embracing this new technology. I think every medium has constraints. If you are working with a paintbrush on canvas you can only do what a paintbrush on canvas allows. To me I see infinite possibilities when it comes to Photoshop. I even enjoy making art on Excel or on Google docs.

Check out Blake's bar code creations below and let us know which famous face would you like to see coded in the comments section.

I just changed my Twitter background to a Latinos for Obama pattern I designed last night in my free trial of Photoshop CS5.1. It's available for download here. To use:

1. Go to your Twitter profile settings.
2. Click 'Design'.
3. Upload the image & click 'Tile Background'.

Many an airbrusher (that's a real profession, right?) has carved out a model's hips, slimmed down a love handle and flattened a tummy here and there. But removing a woman's legs? That would be a bit heavy-handed.

The eagle-eyed folks at Photoshop Disasters spotted this ad from Luciano Conti Professional, an Italian haircare line that's teamed with Brazilian brand Matra Milano Cosmetics. Ads for the 2011 campaign, shot by Angelo Lanza, feature a highly attractive man holding an equally attractive blonde woman, her legs dangling over his arms.

You can see how the original shots came out in the behind-the-scenes video, below. But somehow, in the printed ad, the female model's legs seem to have gone missing... or perhaps the male model's biceps are so big they conceal them?

Check it out below and tell us: do you think this is a Photoshop Fail?

PHOTO:

See more Photoshop Fails!

For the first time in seven years, Adobe has released a beta version of its flagship image editor in advance of a formal product release. Photoshop CS6 beta is now available as a free download from Adobe Labs in English and Japanese. The commercial release will follow fairly soon--sometime within the first half of this year.

We generally assume that every mag cover we see has received a dose of Photoshop, whether it be an extra heavy helping (like so) or just a smidgen (like so).

But Intelligent Life, a lifestyle and culture magazine from The Economist, switched things up and banished airbrushing on its latest cover. As pointed out by Racked, the mag made a conscious decision to leave covergirl Cate Blanchett untouched.

As Tim de Lisle, editor of Intelligent Life, writes:

When other magazines photograph actresses, they routinely end up running heavily Photoshopped images, with every last wrinkle expunged. Their skin is rendered so improbably smooth that, with the biggest stars, you wonder why the photographer didn’t just do a shoot with their waxwork.

[...]

Cate Blanchett, by contrast, appears on our cover in her working clothes, with the odd line on her face and faint bags under her eyes. She looks like what she is -- a woman of 42, spending her days in an office, her evenings on stage and the rest of her time looking after three young children. We can’t be too self-righteous about it, because, like anyone else who puts her on a cover, we are benefiting from her beauty and distinction. But the shot is at least trying to reflect real life. It’s a curious sign of the times that this has become something to shout about.

Curious indeed. Not Photoshopping has become the hot topic as Photoshopping is firmly established as the norm. But experiments like this give the industry an opportunity to determine the actual importance of Photoshopping. Will Cate's visible wrinkles cause a drop in Intelligent Life's newsstand sales? One would hope not.

But when another mag, Marie Claire, went out on a limb and featured a totally un-airbrushed, sans makeup Jessica Simpson on its October 2010 cover, the result was less than encouraging: the issue was Marie Claire's worst-selling of the year.

But hey, at least Intelligent Life is giving it another go. What do you think of Cate's cover?

When you think of the holy creator, chances are if you've been brought up Christian you imagine a guy with a flowing white beard and white robe spending some time amid the clouds, perhaps reaching out to give life to the first human with the stretch of his arm. "The Creation of Adam" is Michalangelo's masterpiece, but a lot has changed since the 16th Century. We now have basketball games, bright lights, working toilets, and all the mod cons. So what would God think of all this?

On Shockblast's website, it states "God is doing badass things. Where is he now?" Well, you'll have to take a look in the slideshow below to see, won't you?

For those daring, blasphemous souls with Photoshop skills, you can submit your own divine creations here.

What do you think, readers? Is this a funny project or has it gone too far? Let us know in the comments section.

CORRECTION: In an earlier version of this article, we mistakenly stated that "The Creation of Adam" was painted in the 14th, not the 16th, century.

By now, most of you have heard about Angelina Jolie's awkward right leg thrust at the Oscars on Sunday, which spawned a Twitter account with 35,000 viewers. Why did this pose happen? And more important, how many of you decided to Photoshop the leg into hundreds (if not thousands) of weird photos in a practice now known as "legbombing?"

BuzzFeed featured an insane number of these leggy new mashups already today, and we're sure there's no end in sight now that Pininterest is on board.

We now have the "Calgary Edition" of legbombing. (Yes, it involves hockey.) You can see Jolie's leg with the Statue of Liberty and Darth Vader; it is even featured in "Napoleon Crossing The Alps," the iconic painting by Jacques-Louis David. The gam has also made us consider Whistler's Mother in a whole new light.

A slideshow of some leggy art is below. What's been your favorite art version of Jolie's leg so far?