There's only so much value in this type of digital manipulation - I'd bet my job as a photo editor, that upon enlargement, too much a shift in perspective will be easy to spot, if not on the subject then likely on BG objects - notice that the main examples are on a plain BG - or in the case of the outdoor shot, a very blurred BG. Since a bitmapped image can only be adjusted with careful selection of the correct pixels, I don't believe an algorithm has been created that can easily discern a car from a person in a bitmap, so I suppose it's an all or nothing filter, distorting the whole image - too much will look absurd. I would also bet that as the subject fills the frame - so to speak, that the effect loses utility - I'd bet on close headshots anything more than a dab will distort the image badly. It really is a stupid idea, this slimming filter - not just because of vanity or low self esteem,, but on the culpability of a virtual existence, where myspace is the community and what we present in RGB is who we are. David Foster Wallace explores this in Infinite Jest, if I recall, explaining (and this is the future now) why video telephony ultimately fails on the consumer level.

but I don't want to spoil it for you...

"it only makes a difference if you have healthy body proportion and just want to look a teensy bit slimmer."

In that case, why bother? I'll just Photoshop my head onto Halle Berry/Jessica Simpson/Jennifer Lopez or whoever is the babe of the month and go with that!

But now I deeply regret that I bought a Canon Elph last month. This is HANDS DOWN exactly the camera I want.

My self-esteem is fine. But I too photgraph very, very badly. I always end up looking about 15 lbs heavier than I actually am.

I see nothing wrong with tweaking a photo to make a prettier picture. Heck, I had a zit airbrushed off of my high school yearbook photo, and I saw a professional stylist and makeup artist before having my wedding photo taken. Why should this be any different?

Far from harming women, I think as technology like this becomes more common, people will be more aware that perception is NOT reality.

It's not entirely the patriarchy either -- magazines like Vogue have long had female editors-in-chief, like Diana Vreeland or Anna Wintour. Often I feel that it is women ourselves who are our own worst enemies.

One thing I learned when I worked as a stripper is that men actually don't give a damn if a woman has ten extra pounds. Bloody hell, they don't even notice. If fashion magazines really were about fulfilling male desires, we'd be seeing a lot more curvy big chested models, and they would be wearing mostly garterbelts, bikinis, and lingerie.

WOMEN are the ones who want the hyper skinny models and the clothing that only looks good on fourteen year old ectomorphs. Beauty magazines are bought by WOMEN and the editors (many of whom are also women) are well aware of this.

In addition to my gig as a stripper, I worked as an editor on many "alternative" magazines which had the goal of writing about fashion and style with "real women" in mind-- without exception every one of these magazines folded due to lack of readership, or they became more like Vogue.

One of the things you learn in marketing is that what people say they want is not always the same as what they actually buy (e.g., most polls indicate that people overwhelmingly prefer and want healthy breakfast cereals with less sugar; but when you try to actually market such a product, guess what? They don't buy it).

Everytime this issues comes up, there is a pandemonium of women saying that this is not what they like or want-- oh they are outraged! The letters pour in! The prtests are organized!

Yet, when they are in line at the magazine rack at the grocery store, what do they actually reach for? Well you tell me: what is the best selling beauty magazine worldwide? Come on... You can say it... Come on....

If you like the new slimming feature on the HP digital cameras, you'll love what they're working on next: Digital eyewear that slims your view in realtime.

Now everyone you see will look a whole lot better. This is the digital version of 'beer goggles'. Watch for it coming out early 2007.

The tag line for the product is "HP Digital - Let yourself go!".

I have an idea what this camera is for. I know a woman who has access to Photoshop and also does online dating. She "slims" her own picture with Photoshop before putting it up on her ad. I don't know if the guys figure it out when they meet her or if they think she just used an old picture. I bet this camera is for people who do that and don't have Photoshop.

I am sure if there were a camera that added hair to a guy's head or a few inches to his height, some guys would use it to doctor their own online dating ad photos. It's sometimes possible to spot online photos where the guy has colored in hair on the top of his head. I don't know what these people are thinking, but it definitely goes on.

People do not photograph badly. People are photographed badly by others. There's a phrase that I use with my clients, which is, "The camera doesn't add ten pounds, the -photographer- adds ten pounds." This is the A-number-1 reason why you tend to look better in professional photographs. We know how to make you stand and light you so that you look "better". We know our cameras and our lenses and make appropriate choices.

In school, we had hours and hours of training on how to use Photoshop to change the way that our subjects looked. And this was after hours and hours of training on the proper lighting for faces, the proper lenses for different circumstances, even the proper films for the clients that preferred it over digital. Not that you have to go to school to learn this, but someone needs to teach you or you shoot crap for a while until you learn it yourself.

Fact of the matter is that consumer point and shoot cameras don't have lens options. They don't have short versus long options - just close or far away. They have a direct flash, which looks good on about 1% of the things in this world that you'd photograph, like bugs - I wish that consumers had the same options that we professionals have. But they don't. They don't have the gear, they don't have the experience. So, HP comes up with a way to shortcut the procedures that we go through every day to compensate for the inherit drawbacks of the convenience of their products. This does not bother me.

We've been airbrushing pictures (or just flat out changing our negatives) practically since photography was invented. People should be smart enough to know that they can't trust pictures in magazines. Even catalogs do it. There are even some wedding photographers that offer a slimming service in their packages. Professionals that have ethical reservations about this practice normally choose not to shoot fashion or onbody work (catalog). Everyone else calls it "post-production".

Professionals (actors, models, and other celebrities) are accustomed to this - your image is your career - and you have a manager or agent that controls all of this. Your image is a creation, its own creature almost. It's why you get paid. Actresses get trained on how to walk down the red carpet, they are trained how to stand, how to walk, how to pose, -everything-.

For us, the little people, our lives are very different. I look at the whole thing from a more journalistic approach - when you cut it to the quick, every time you look at that picture of yourself - you are looking at a lie. A lie that you created. A lie you constructed, tweaked, and put into pixels. A lie that you distributed to others. A lie that you chose to make permanent. Are you okay with that? Then fine. If not, don't use it.

If you really want to tango with this - try talking to a photojournalist. Forget the whole women/body image thing - for them it's a slippery slope - When I change this person, am I changing fact or just making them more appealing? When I alter this image, am I creating a lie or just bettering the composition? Where does my responsibility for this image end?