photo retouching (ethical or unethical?)

Is photo retouching unethical? I find that it depends on how you use it. If you are using it to simple switch the heads on your family photos that's just for fun your not hurting anybody. But if you use it to retouch how someone looks and change them into something that there not and then tell people that if they don't look like that person then they are ugly. That is truly unethical.


In this photo they have changed the way this woman looks and changed her into something she is not. A huge problem with this is that the people who read these magazines that have no idea that these photos have been retouched and really think that she looks like that. After they see this photo they strive to look like that woman and try to change themselves and don't care how badly they hurt there body. And the media industry does nothing to stop this behavior.


I feel that the media industry should realize how people interpret these photos and should let people know that nobody really looks like that and that we are all flawed.