W Photoshopped Demi Moore’s Head Onto Anja Rubik’s Body for the December Cover

[Nemezide]

Last week, reps from W told Jezebel they "did not do anything unusual or out of the ordinary on Demi Moore for the photo on the cover of W." Many had wondered what exactly the magazine did to allow Demi's left hip to cut in farther than her left thigh. Noting, secondly, the lack of any sort of wrinkle on Demi's face or body, particularly the armpit area (so normal for a 47-year-old), a professional retoucher and friend of the Cut suspected a lot of retouching had been done. Now, cover conspiracy theorists on blogs Oh No They Didn't and Pop Culture Madness suggest W Photoshopped Demi's face onto the body of Anja Rubik, as shot on the runway in the spring 2010 Balmain show.
Jezebel notes there is no need for the magazine to do that when they did their own shoot with Demi Moore and have the world's best retouchers at their disposal. Our retouching expert notes celebrity heads are often only Photoshopped onto models's bodies for advertisements.

nymag.com

 

[Filipe]

This is pretty ridiculous, it's so easy to notice this, people obviously would look for what Demi was wearing on the cover and see the runway look.

 

[duprex]

I don't see it.
They certainly photoshopped the hell out of Demi but that's not Anja's torso.

 

[Filipe]

It's Anja's body with Demi's head. They photoshopped it a lot though.

 

[Urban Stylin]

darn

 

[duprex]

Putting the two pics next to each other I still don't see it.The collarbone,skin tone and legs are all different. Unless the pic they photoshopped from isn't the runway pic to the right.

 

[iluvjeisa]

^It wouldn't the that particular pic. And you can easily adjust the light with the tools they have at their disposal.

I can flop heads around on my family photos without anyone noticing, granted on the same person, I'm sure they can do far more than that.

If it's not photoshop, it is extraordinary indeed how similarly proportioned Anja and Demi are in every single way.

And it still doesn't explain why the thigh was disjointed like that.

 

[Fontenrose]

Whatever sort of Frankenstein job they did, referring to Anja's body (there would be hundreds of runway photos to choose from) certainly explains what happened to Demi's hip, since Anja was walking. Her foot was far enough back that her thigh is receding. Meanwhile Demi's legs are in a standing position.

I think the creative staff just didn't know when to stop. I bet Demi has no idea what the real original photo looks like.

For the magazine to say they didn't do anything "unusual" is meaningless.

This picture is front and center on a slide show on photoshopped images:

http://www.abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/slideshow?id=3221224

 

[MarionasMuse]

Wow?Is it true???I`m a little bit shocked...What a shame if it`s true of course... : O

 

[Vevi]

there was another pic from that show on the slovak site, which speaks more for the fact that it is not Moore's body. But I wonder why would she write on her twitter that it is her? O.o this magazine cover case should be forgotten, because it is getting weirder and more awkward...

topky.sk

EDIT: however, some guys suggested that maybe she was posing like this, so there is a possibility the hips was not shopped (?) so confusing...:

philosopedia.org

 

[Fontenrose]

Now that the software for editing pictures is on everyone's desktop, everyone fancies themselves an artist.

from models.com

Retouching, has become a hot button issue within fashion circles. 2009 could go down as the year of Photoshop scandals; whether it is Demi Moore’s supposedly missing hip on the cover of W; or airbrushed to oblivion models, in posters for Ralph Lauren, people noticed something awry. While the outcry over retouching was especially vocal, little has been said by those involved directly in the creative process. To get a better understanding of just how the very public retouching accidents happened, MDC sat down with retoucher, Jason Tuchman. As founder of Pistol Studios, Jason is responsible for some of the most high profile retouching in the business: you may not know his name but you’ve certainly seen his seamless work everywhere from ads to editorials. In our exclusive interview, Jason explains the constraints of retouching and shares what its future may hold. (Interview by Betty Sze)
MDC: What are your thoughts on the retouching backlash?
JT: It all comes down to what every industry is coming down to: budget. Everyone is cutting budgets so the high end retouchers like myself are not getting the budget we used to- or the time to do our work. Now that we’re getting less time- it’s harder to produce beautiful and natural images. Also with the budget cut people are using in house retouchers- junior retouchers to do the work which should be done by senior retouchers. When you get people like that you end up with airbushed images. Everything looks like crap- people are too skinny, the skin is a mess.

...
story continues

 

[jun3machina]

wow. that's a new low for covers if you ask me. why even have photo shoots then? why not just take high quality already existant pics of celebs and put them on models bodies, so that way you can completely cut costs....better yet, create a digital scan of the celeb, then import it into POSER and you can have them on the cover in any position whenever.....in whatever....

 

[DaisyLovesJack]

Magazines would be so awesome if they completely nixed airbrushing.

 

[iluvjeisa]

^In some ways, yes. People have become so enchanted with the technique that the people dealing with the retouching bit have their technical exams and enough artistic interest to take an absolutely flawless young woman like Valentina and make her into his own ideal figure (which interestingly enough is an Adonis with breasts). It has nothing to do with art and all to do with technology. What we are seeing now is the end result of technology/craft over art.

Jason Tuchman obviously has a sense for art. But some of the people doing the actual work on the lower levels have become so reliant on someone higher up to possess the artistic qualities and lead them toward a reasonable image, that freak accidents like the Ralph Lauren pictures occur. Ralph Lauren is one thing, though, W is entirely another. It is one of the top selling pseudo-avantgarde magazine in the US. Not even W can get it together at this point.

If you don't have the money to hire decent teams to produce an image that is not even physiologically feasible, then skip Demi and go to the real thing - Anja.

Demi is gorgeous, but she is 40+ and apparently they no longer have the staff able to do the technical work, so just get a good photographer, a cheap model (compared to celeb) and get a decent photo...

And even when it comes to non-catastrophical images from the 90s onward - it's far too techno-focused, art hasn't even taken the back seat, it's resting at home or even resting in Diana Vreeland's coffin.

 

[Jennika]

I think the best way to end this would be to make some outtakes from the photoshoot available so people can see how "real" the cover really is

 

[leyla m.]

photoshopped yeas but rubiks body? hum?

 

[shoesexy]

Photoshopped, cut 'n paste ..... it's all the same lie ..... and tends to lower the self-esteem of young girls everywhere.

 

[Echoes]

It isn't the first photo, but it could be the second one. The right hand placement is wrong in the first, and there's the 'loincloth' issue, but both look much closer in the second pic.

I don't know though, the loincloth is still hanging differently and the fingers are different on both hands.

 

[Echoes]

I just saved both images, adjusted the opacity of the second shot of Ana in post #10 and overlaid it on the shot of Demi. They are very close, but definitely not identical. There are a number of differences in the poses that could not be effectively edited.

Not saying there isn't another shot they may have used though.

 

[Fontenrose]

There would have been hundreds of runway shots to choose from.

They might have only used a part of Anja's body. No one would have questioned it, except for the funny looking hip position. Anja is also 5" taller, so consider than when you overlay the pictures.

Could Demi fit into the sample dress?