Even without the retouching (alleged), this new NBC promo pic of Jay Leno is extremely odd. He looks gigantic, almost like it's a giant wax-duplicate of Leno.

But the real story is that retouching that Newsweek says NBC has done with this pic for The Jay Leno Show. I don't really know if the skin tone of the hand is that different than the face, but it's certainly odd because it's not even touching his face like they want us to believe. Also: either he has had major plastic surgery or there's retouching on the face too.

I wonder why they wanted the hand there anyway. To make him look "contemplative?"

I love advertisements. Especially since the use of PhotoShop has become so widespread, ads and pictures in magazines have become less and less interested in reality, and more interested in the general idea of what an image is.

For instance, the ad for Cycle 11 of America's Next Top Model featured in the September issue of Vogue doesn't look like a picture of Tyra Banks surrounded by fashionista wannabes, so much as the idea of Tyra Banks surrounded by fashionista wannabes ... as imagined by an unholy union of Pixar artists and caricature-drawing carnies after a 72-hour absinthe and 'shroom binge that featured Jesus Christ Superstar stuck on a loop in the DVD player.

On Wednesday morning's edition of Fox and Friends, the Fox News channel aired altered photos of two New York Times reporters to retaliate against a Times Saturday edition piece which pointed out some "ominous trends" in the show's ratings.

Co-hosts Steve Doocy and Brian Kilmeade showed the photos which portrayed Jacques Steinberg with yellow teeth, a wider chin, and big ears, and Times television editor Steven Reddicliffe with the same yellow smile and a receding hairline. The caricatures seem to be done with Adobe Photoshop (tm) tools.

In the world of digital image manipulation there are two types of Photoshop users: those who use it like an artist uses a brush, and those who use it like a 1st grader uses glue to paste cutouts on a worksheet. In today's lesson, we'll be talking about the 1st grader.

Take a look at the image of Ugly Betty's America Ferrera from the cover of October's Glamour magazine. Many reports are saying that America's head has been sloppily pasted to a thinner woman's body. From the most recent image of America on the left, it certainly looks like a digital imaging hash job. The head seems a bit off kilter. And, take a look at her neck. Isn't it just a tad thinner and longer than we are used to seeing?

First Katie Couric, now Rosie O'Donnell.

Yup, Rosie's body has been altered too, in a recent photop promoting the new season of The View. But even Rosie noticed it, and has a sense of humor about it. From her blog:

look at the amount of white space
between my arm and body
barbara and elisabeth seem to vanish
there in my underarm

If we ever do a photo of me here on TV Squad, I'm going to have the art guy add some hair to my head.