Retouching is getting a very bad name in the media these days, and photographer Jean-Baptiste Mondino is fighting back against a possible law in France that would require any Photoshop image to clearly mention its changes via a warning label. While instances of bad airbrushing and tampering have become extremely apparent as of late, he’s out to show that not all alterations are bad. In fact, he wants to prove that they’re more commonplace than anyone realizes. This weekend, he published a photo of a woman Photoshopped in Libération’s Next magazine, but instead of giving her skinnier hips, he enhanced her curves (reminiscent of Beth Dittos’ Love cover).

You believed French women looked gorgeous naturally, didn’t you? Quel suprise! Airbrushing is causing unrealistic body images and encouraging eating disorders, said a French politician on Monday as she proposed warning labels on digitally enhanced images.  Parlimentarian Valerie Boyer and 50 other French politicians want a “health warning” on airbrushed pics. All enhanced photos would be accompanied by this line: “Photograph retouched to modify the physical appearance of a person.” Under the proposal in France, a company that didn’t include the warning on their retouched ads would be slapped with a trés mal fine of a $54,930, or up to 50 percent the cost of the advertisement. The French proposal comes on the heels of a suggestion by British pols for warning labels of their own. But what we want to know is how long until such a proposal comes to the States, where we just love our Photoshop? (And can you imagine what Anna Wintour would have to say about it?) [Yahoo]

Makeup artist Kay Montano prepared Kate Moss for for an iconic Calvin Klein perfume ad shoot in the late ‘90s. According to Kay, there wasn’t any makeup involved in the making of the ads because her bosses urged her to be frugal due to the recession at the time:

“Yes, the recession came and after that fashion and beauty became rather more pared down. One of my first jobs after moving to New York was to make up Kate Moss for the Calvin Klein Obsession fragrance campaign and I just used moisturizer. She looked absolutely perfect.”

Here’s why this is confusing.

Kate Moss is hotter than ever these days. She’s killing it in new Prada and Just Cavalli campaigns, gracing the September covers of W and Russian Vogue, and recent business dealings with Simon Cowell and Philip Green indicate that the model-turned-designer is also entering into entertainment mogul territory. But the Daily Mail, one of the UK’s most entertaining and trashtastic papers, is always ready to cut a celeb down to size, and they love their Kate pot shots. This time, however, they’ve gone too far.

Airbrushing: It used to be only for average-sized women on ladymag covers and Gisele’s pregnant belly. Now, according to The Sun, some Facebookers are touching up their personal photos to plump boobs, flatten bellies, and whiten teeth. One British photography shop said customers who want their photos airbrushed have increased 550 percent.

Like many celebrities, Kelly Clarkson appears on the September issue of Self looking more svelte than recent pictures of her in real life. We’ve been talking about airbrushing all week here at The Frisky, and we’ll continue to until it’s less of an industry standard. (Mind you, once that day comes, then we’ll probably talk about the dinosaurs who’re still doing it.) While it’s no big whoop that yet another star is airbrushed on a glossy magazine cover—after all, they all are each and every month—we noticed that Jezebel suggested that the editors at Self had not just airbrushed but also used Photoshop to slim the pop star down. Way down.

There’s been plenty of talk of airbrushing in the news this week, and we have no doubt that 51-year-old Sharon Stone‘s bod was given the same treatment for this Paris Match cover. They certainly didn’t skimp on the body oil, that’s for damn sure. In spite of all of Stone’s cuckoo banana antics (or maybe because of them), we still kind of love her, and agree that in general, despite the Botox, boob jobs and who knows what else, she looks pretty smokin’. That said, do you find it to be totally effed that being “body confident at age 50!” basically has to involve plastic surgery—you know, in the celebrity magazine world, anyway? Maybe in addition to airbrushing labels, there should be plastic surgery warnings slapped on ads and glossy spreads, too.

Uhrm yeah, I guess that’s all we really have to say here, except one also might add that if you’re gonna get a boob job, this seems like a fairly tasteful size, no?

Even though she’s a mom, Victoria Beckham‘s taut and toned body in the new Armani ad released today is utterly devoid of wrinkles and jiggly bits. Gisele’s pregnant belly was flattened in the London Fog ads. Beth Ditto got fattened up on the cover of Love. Kim Kardashian appeared slimmed and lightened in Complex. Jeez Louise, the Photoshop-wielding warlocks should win big fat trophies for all their Great Moments In Airbrushing humdingers this year.

Or maybe airbrushed ads should get warning labels, says one British politician. Jo Swinson, a Liberal Democrat in the U.K., said that airbrushing should be banned on advertising intended for viewing by children younger than 16 and all other airbrushed images should carry labels that say what’s been altered.

It’s an absolutely brilliant idea. But unfortunately, it will never happen.

Come to think of it, it’s hard to think of an example of airbrushing gone right, but this London Fog incident is certainly disturbing. According to WWD, the company, which shot the campaign at the beginning of Gisele’s pregnancy, decided to erase her pregnant stomach in order to “respect her privacy.” It seems parent corporation Iconix, who also owns Rampage, transferred the supermodel to their London Fog division so she could wear trench coats instead of tight-fitting jeans. Is this some kind of bizarre maternity discrimination? If they were so concerned about hiding her pregnancy, why did they have to shoot her naked beneath said coat? And most importantly, how freakin’ weird does this ad look? [WWD]

“I have wrinkles here [points to her forehead], which are very evident, and I will particularly say when I look at movie posters, ‘You guys have airbrushed my forehead. Please can you change it back?’ I’d rather be the woman they’re saying ‘She’s looking older’ about than ‘She’s looking stoned.’”

— Kate Winslet in Harper’s Bazaar

I think we all agree that magazines have gone a little overboard with Photoshopping photos in a quest for perfection on their beautiful, glossy pages. It can be detrimental to women’s attitudes about our own bodies when we see models with pencil-like legs and whittled-down waists. But what about when photo retouching makes women larger than they are in real life? Is that also bad for us “real” women?

French Elle has bitch slapped the fashion and beauty industries with their most recent cover. Again. For the second time this year, their cover shoot was minimally made up and, dare I say it, almost natural looking. We loved when they shot hottie model Eva Herzigova sans makeup a couple months again, putting her in a pared down white blouse and similarly laid back hair.

This time though, we weren’t so thrilled. Yes, we applaud the move away from airbrushed impossibility in the general sense, but Scarlett Johansson’s cover is a tad confusing. She’s minimally made up and there doesn’t seem to be blatant airbrushing, but the clothing is a bit trampy, the hair super boring and the expression utterly vacant. This one’s just not doing it for us.

We were psyched to learn that L’Oreal hired “Slumdog Millionaire”‘s Freida Pinto as its latest spokesperson. This is the first shot from the upcoming ad campaign. She looks ... lighter. L’Oreal, have you learned nothing from the Beyonce debacle? [via Daily Mail U.K.]

Update: L’Oreal sent us this statement:

“L’Oréal Paris is thrilled to have Freida Pinto as a new spokesperson. The photo that accompanied our announcement is an existing publicity photo of Freida provided to L’Oréal by her management as we have yet to begin our initial project with her (or commenced any photography to date.) We are looking forward to working with Freida on her first L’Oreal campaign, which will take place in the near future.”

On the heels of French Elle‘s no-makeup or retouching issue, Australian teen magazine Dolly is highlighting more natural photographs, as well. Most of the June “airbrush-free” issue’s photographs are un-retouched and labeled a “Retouch Free Zone” stamp.

We’re all for more reality in magazines, especially those geared toward girls. When I was devouring teen and women’s magazines at a younger age, I had no idea that retouching existed, and I thought I was the only person in the world who had visible pores on my face. While it’s great that this issue is happening (and will likely be repeated due to the response its getting, according to Dolly editor-in-chief Gemma Crisp), there might be some unfortunate effects.

Magazine editors seem to have noticed (at last!) that women need to see models and actresses in a truer form, without the work of makeup artists and retouchers to mask their pores, cellulite, and wrinkles. The upcoming issue of French Elle, which hits newsstands this weekend, features Eva Herzigova, Monica Bellucci, Sophie Marceau, Charlotte Rampling, and four other females sans fards, which is a French idiom that literally means “without rouge/makeup,” but implies “openness.”

We’re totally psyched to see beautiful women in a more natural, albeit still extremely flattering light. Photographer Peter Lindbergh snapped the women, so they’re not anything like the horribly unattractive candids our friends take of us around 1 a.m. after we’ve ingested a few cocktails, but they’re the closest a fashion magazine is going to get.

Hey, remember how we looked back at all the airbrushing scandals of the last year? Well here’s another! Kim Kardashian was photographed for the cover of Complex magazine, but I guess they forgot to Photoshop one of the images they used. It’s since been fixed on the website—Skinnier? Check! Whiter? Check!—but not before Animal NY could snag the before and after! [via Gawker]

Dove finally issued a statement about the Dove Campaign for Real Beauty ads and whether they were airbrushed. They say that there wasn’t any major retouching on the photos, only removal of dust and minor color correction. Pascal Dangin, the retoucher, confirms this: “The recent article published by The New Yorker incorrectly implies that I retouched the images in connection with the Dove “real women” ad. I only worked on the Dove ProAge campaign taken by Annie Leibovitz and was directed only to remove dust and do color correction—both the integrity of the photographs and the women’s natural beauty were maintained.” Who can you believe? [JolieNadine.com via Jezebel]

Previously: Even “Real” Women Are Digitally Enhanced