A program analyzes and rates the finishing touches on a photo

The photo editing tools like Photoshop is widely used, both to improve the image of a character as more harmful uses that encourage anorexia. In June, the American Medical Association suggested that the media to adopt criteria to discourage alteration of photographic images "that could promote an unrealistic expectation on the appropriate image of the body." In some European countries, feminist groups have called for labeling of photos to mark the image disturbances. Now, some U.S. researchers have proposed a program to evaluate and quantify the degree of retouching a photo. In the study, published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), the authors, Hany Farid and Eric Kee, indicate that the highly idealized images have been linked to eating disorders and body image dissatisfaction.

The United States has proposed the popular support for a law regulating the use of photo retouching in advertising. According to its promoters, 53% of girls aged 13 years are dissatisfied with their own body. When you are 17 years have seen about 250,000 television commercials that appear in the bodies that can never emulate. One of its promoters explained to The New York Times do not try to demonize the use of Photoshop, just install the transparency in advertising. "It's just that when you contemplate a body know if it is real or an avatar."

The show's creators have taken into account geometric changes such as thinning of the legs, facial symmetry adjustment and correction of posture, as well as photometric manipulations including removal of wrinkles, bags under eyes and blemishes of the skin. Farid said that "starts from before and after the digital images that automatically estimates the geometric and photometric changes, on reverse engineering manipulations were carried out for the touch."

To validate the method, the researchers asked human observers to evaluate the differences among a collection of original photos and tweaks to set the metric of the program.

The program evaluates the changes on a scale of 1 to 5 distinguishes from minimal changes to the unreal. Farid says the system aims to help self-regulation. The publication of the scale of an image retouching models may encourage not want to appear in photos with a touch of five degrees.