Photo and video manipulation has gone from an expensive and impractical endeavor to something that’s possible in a matter of seconds .
But there’s a big difference between a tasteful touch-up and a Photoshop fiasco — a difference that lots of people seem to have trouble with. We don’t want to laugh at the folks who made these images — but at the same time, it’s hard to help yourself.
“Found these fluffy table mats on Etsy.”
Sometimes it’s tough finding a suitable background for the thing you’re trying to sell, so you might think a quick and dirty Photoshop job will do the trick. Unless you’re good with Photoshop, it will absolutely not do the trick.
“TMZ ‘composite’ fail of Sophie Turner and Joe Jonas’ newborn.”
AI-based image generators have become so good that composite monstrosities like this will soon be a thing of the past. I genuinely wonder if a single person who viewed this image was fooled by it.
“Is it me or are the dots Photoshopped?”
A quick glance at this image doesn’t reveal anything amiss. But it’s when you take a closer look that things fall apart. If you ordered this, what would be the state of your polka dots?
“This ad for a dog fence, I mean look at the puppy!”
Plenty of Amazon listings feature images that are clearly Photoshopped, but done so in a way that makes them passable approximations the real thing. At first, I thought that this image belonged in that category. Then I saw the dog on the right.
“Regular waffle iron magically makes pumpkins.”
One of the biggest late summer and early fall phenomenons of the past few years is pumpkin spice everything . Apparently the promise of pumpkins (and spice) is enough to make waffle irons accomplish the impossible.
“Professional photo editing – The whole page is full of these.”
This might not be the worst thing ever if the artist was trying to turn this guy into a cartoon, but I don’t think that’s the goal here. Try not to look too close at his hands and arms.
“How big is this thing?”
A hot glue gun is a handy thing to have around the house. I think the standard size works just fine, but if you’re bold, you can go for this model that apparently gets bigger the more you use it.
“I was looking for a cat backpack and found this.”
I’m about ninety percent sure that this image, aside from the obvious Photoshop fail, is not touched up in any big way. It would be a nicely composed photo if not for the aforementioned cat backpack.
“Living the hourglass life.”
Studies prove that women who want an unrealistic hourglass figure are less satisfied with their bodies . I didn’t know that this was a thing with men, but this image would suggest otherwise.
Just try to be cool with your bodies, people.
“The product here is the headband. Clearly only cool guys wear it.”
I guess that headband looks fine or whatever, but it’s really hard to focus on a narrow wire hairpiece when those unbelievably cool shades are front and center.
“Umm…”
If you must Photoshop abs onto your body, at least do it more convincingly. That could refer either to doing a more competent Photoshop job, or just using an image that’s a little more believable in the first place.
“Those arms and that waist are ridiculous….”
Some of the simplest photo modification tools simply stretch an image in one direction. They work well enough when you’re only looking at the area that’s intended to be stretched, but the wavy background usually gives it away.
“Clickbait at the bottom of a legitimate news article. Totally real bridge with totally real cars…”
When you’re using an image of a bridge that would be deemed too extreme even for the wildest Cities Skylines mods, you’ve probably gone a bit too far.
“Poor horsey legs.”
Here’s another wavy line special. In this case, she was clearly going for a bubble butt thing. Again, the butt area is convincing enough but the photo manipulation has done terrible things to that poor horse’s legs.
“A toy for your child if your child is satan.”
They may have used an image of an actual little kid playing this actual toy piano as a base here. But the mirror is all kinds of wrong. I wouldn’t want to be alone with this thing in a dark room.
“These realtors really tried their best giving the tree some leaves.”
Home buyers generally can accept that photos of the outside of a house were taken in whatever season they were taken in — in other words, if the trees are all bare, so be it. I want to admire this realtor for going the extra mile, but it’s a pretty shoddy job.
“Haters will say it’s Photoshop!”
We can see that this guy has mastered the art of slightly rotating a .png image. He may have even played with the transparency a bit. But his undoing is the fact that he can’t keep things within the lines.
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“And all the kittens clapped for the graphics design skills.”
Look, it’s super cute that you got that pic of the kittens in a…uh, cat cave…in the ground. You didn’t need to embellish it — and if you’re going to embellish it, maybe don’t duplicate the same cat six times.
“Wish I had a dog as real as that..”
This is the wonderful thing about Photoshop. Do you ever take a selfie and wish you had a cute dog in the background? Now, if you really want, you can indeed have a poorly Photoshopped, debatably cute dog in the background.
“Found this advertising an article…how many hands does she have?”
Well, the answer to this question is pretty simple: it’s three. She has three hands, and needs every last one of them to handle this smoothie. As for why she has three hands, I really can’t say.
