I don't totally know how I feel about the use of photoshop on models.

On the one hand, it can be used artistically. For example, I kind of like the heavily photoshopped cosmetic ads where the models look all ethereal, which is largely "not real."

On the other hand, I understand why it's kind of a bad thing if all images of beautiful people who are presented are enhanced, rather than just showing the actual beautiful people as they are. The enhancements aren't needed, and it's crappy to imply that real beauty is lesser than digitally enhanced beauty.

My personal approach is just to not spend that much of my life immersed in Hollywood, the mall, TV ads, etc. And I just really don't consider the photoshopped conglomeration of admired traits to be any kind of default beauty ideal.

What I think we should all do is just appreciate the real people right in front of us. Don't live your life so immersed in a stream of images that all look the same. Go to social events instead of retail stores and movie theaters (I'm not bashing that stuff, it's just probably not good if that's one's primary form of entertainment). Look at independent media. There are plenty of sources of portrayal of beauty that isn't the homogeneous photoshopped model.

I honestly think a lot of the people who speak out against this kind of thing are just bringing more attention to it and adopting it as a default it their minds. It's not the default. Just step out of that circle.

Totally separate thought that just came to me... I find that when I see people in 4 dimensions, soooooo many of them do truly look like perfection to me. Perfectly beautiful humans are all over the place. However photography is different than seeing a person in space and time. Irregularities and such are more apparent in a snapshot, and I guess photoshop evens some of that out. It's kind of like taking a still shot can diminish the person's perfection, and enhancement using photoshop makes up for that.