OH THE HORROR! Is this some sick joke? What have you done to these poor children?

[Freudian_Slit]

@Tuckerfan

Until they take the kid to a plastic surgeon and tell him they want the kid to look like the “photograph.”

Number twelve looks just like…a hideous, hideous abomination.

More and more TZ references the longer this thread goes on.

[OpalCat]

I decided to try a cat:

Before Kitty
Pageant Kitty
*Total Makeover Retouching

This Photo Enhancement Includes:

*Haute Couture feather accent hat added
*“Doll Eyes”
*Mouth replaced
*Lashes added
*Nail polish added
*Dark circles/stripes removed
*Nose reshaped
*Nose “pinkened”
*Totally increased fuckability

[Cervaise]

@OpalCat

Pageant Kitty

I would like to nominate you as the permanent winner of every contest everywhere in the universe for all time.

It’s the nail polish that puts it over the top.

[Tuckerfan]

@Cervaise

I would like to nominate you as the permanent winner of every contest everywhere in the universe for all time.

It’s the nail polish that puts it over the top.

I dunno, the kitten’s face looks a little “lifelike” for my tastes.

[OpalCat]

Should I have used the soften or blur tool to remove all the fur texture?

[Tuckerfan]

@OpalCat

Should I have used the soften or blur tool to remove all the fur texture?

I think so, after all, the subject of the OP does something similar.

[fessie]

That’s hysterical, OpalCat!

[DeadlyAccurate]

@OpalCat

Pageant Kitty

My husband and I laughed so hard at this we couldn’t speak.

[pepperlandgirl]

@OpalCat

I decided to try a cat:

Before Kitty
Pageant Kitty
*Total Makeover Retouching

This Photo Enhancement Includes:
*Totally increased fuckability

My Fuckability. Let me show you it.

[OpalCat]

@Tuckerfan

I think so, after all, the subject of the OP does something similar.

Ok I’ve smoothed out the fur to a plastic skin: http://pics.livejournal.com/opalcat/pic/0009k3eb

[Tuckerfan]

@OpalCat

Ok I’ve smoothed out the fur to a plastic skin: http://pics.livejournal.com/opalcat/pic/0009k3eb

OMG, that’s hideous! Brilliant job!

[Cat_Whisperer]

That is so frickin’ brilliant. How can the people who do this to kids’ photos not realize that this is what they are doing? I guess when you get deeply into an insular world, you don’t realize just how messed-up it is.

[OpalCat]

I know. It’s just sad. I mean there is a legitimate purpose and use for photo retouching. You can remove glare spots, zits, red-eye; you can fix an errant hair or a slip peeking out from a hem line. You can take a weird shine off a tooth, or remove eye boogers. You really can improve a photo without fundamentally altering the subject.

What these people are doing isn’t that. It’s… it’s just wrong. And even if the decision to make an “ultra perfect child photo” weren’t inherently wrong, they’re bad at it to boot! It’s disheartening

[Big_Norse]

@cher3

I’m not getting the pageant aspect here. I think children’s pageants must be a very freaky world, but would even they accept such a radically altered photo as a entry of some kind? Why? What happens when the child gets to the pageant and doesn’t look anything like that? I must be missing something about the whole culture.

I don’t get this either, but it must be part of the culture. Apparently little girl pageants don’t need the pictures to actually look like the girl - and blue eyes are preferable (over green even - go figure).

These examples aren’t as egregious as the ones in the OP, but they pretty much take all the character out of the faces.
(scroll over to see original)
Sample 1
Sample 2

These are pretty bad

This is a “natural” enhancement by these folks
And this are their “glitz” options.

[Acorns.but_not_Bacon]

In your last two links you can’t see any definition of their face, it’s like someone just plonked their noses on!

The photoenhancer site is horrible, worse than the OP links imo because of added creepiness factor and there are only two pics! And the website looks like a christmas card a kid made.

[Sunspace]

@OpalCat

Ok I’ve smoothed out the fur to a plastic skin: http://pics.livejournal.com/opalcat/pic/0009k3eb

I am going to have nightmares now. Well done!

If there was only some way of sending that pic to some of these people to break the spell so that they could really see how what they’re doing is dehumanising.

Incidentally, the original meaning of “glamour” was a kind of enchantment that trapped the victim. I wonder whether these pageanteers know that.

[Sunrazor]

Even the wedding retouching samples Hal Briston linked to put me off, especially the outdoor one. Cleaning up the background is one thing, but all of the other changes made on the bride’s face – damnit, that’s not what she looks like! She never looked like that, she will never look like that. It’s like saying, “Here’s what she looked like if she were somebody else who looks a lot like her.” Widening and brightening the eyes, changing the shape of the mouth, enhancing the teeth – that’s not a photo of that woman. And it looks fake as hell.

[Cat_Whisperer]

Looking at the new additions here, it occurs to me another reason why these are so creepy - they seem to not only remove all character from the face, but they seem to remove all thought from the heads, too - “the lights are on but nobody’s home” is NOT a good look for anyone.

[Derleth]

@Sunspace

Incidentally, the original meaning of “glamour” was a kind of enchantment that trapped the victim.

Indeed. In the 1913 edition of Webster’s, the ‘glamour’ entry runs thus:

Glamour \Gla"mour, n. [Scot. glamour, glamer; cf. Icel.
gl['a]meggdr one who is troubled with the glaucoma (?); or
Icel. gl[=a]m-s[=y]ni weakness of sight, glamour; gl[=a]mr
name of the moon, also of a ghost + s[=y]ni sight, akin to E.
see. Perh., however, a corruption of E. gramarye.]
[1913 Webster]
1. A charm affecting the eye, making objects appear different
from what they really are.
[1913 Webster]

 2. Witchcraft; magic; a spell. --Tennyson.
    [1913 Webster]

 3. A kind of haze in the air, causing things to appear
    different from what they really are.
    [1913 Webster]

          The air filled with a strange, pale glamour that
          seemed to lie over the broad valley.  --W. Black.
    [1913 Webster]

 4. Any artificial interest in, or association with, an
    object, through which it appears delusively magnified or
    glorified.
    [1913 Webster]

 {Glamour gift}, {Glamour might}, the gift or power of
    producing a glamour. The former is used figuratively, of
    the gift of fascination peculiar to women.
    [1913 Webster]

          It had much of glamour might
          To make a lady seem a knight.         --Sir W.
                                                Scott.
    [1913 Webster]

(I happen to have it installed on my computer (Ubuntu package) but it’s widely available in web editions. One of them is here.)

[DeadlyAccurate]

Maybe we’re thinking about this all wrong. Maybe the fake doll look is deliberate. Like the way you might have your photos taken while wearing 19th century clothes and the photo is all sepia-toned. That’s all I can think of to explain something like this. By the way, I noticed all the images the OP linked to have all changed.