Ooh, ooh - MORE proof we're all going to hell: Newborn retouching

Is your newborn looking a little, well, not-so-fresh? Got some wrinkles or extra pudge? Squinty eyes? A touch of jaundice?

You are in luck, my baby-pageant-entering-friends! Castle Rock, CO-based Classy Announcements will take baby's first picture and turn it into a "stunning birth announcement," with a specially-hired artist "retouch(ing) your photos to optimize contrast, color tone, red eye, and blemishes--photo retouching is included free."

What? You thought a real snapshot of Junior, all healthy and screaming in his/her first breath au natural was appropriate? Silly parent.

Oh, and even if you're really, really excited about creating a human being and ushering that littlle one into the world, wait a few weeks, will ya? ""Newborns less than two weeks old tend to have very flushed and red faces. You'll get prettier pictures once baby is about one month old and their skin settles into a more natural color." Sheesh! Some parents have no respect for eyeballs of others.

Here's an example of what your fresh-from-the-uterus baby should look like:

Little Brooke actually has no hair (SO 90s!), a slightly cone-shaped head resulting from vacuum-assisted delivery, and small bags under her eyes. But you don't need to see that! Certainly Grandma doesn't. Classy Announcements to the rescue!

Comments

Sheesh, that is HORRIBLE! What kind of parents would even think, "Oh, my baby doesn't look PERFECT, so let's get him retouched!"

Wow. That's all I have to say. Shame on them.

I was going to say something full of rage about how people who do things like that don't deserve to procreate, as they are clearly incapable of loving anything on its own, perfect, beautiful merits. But I won't. Because I am broody and PMS-ing and not to be trusted.

Although my crazy Russian Jewish grandmother said my cousin looked like E.T when she was born and the poor girl never got over it. Maybe there should be a different rule for babies with potentially tactless grandparents...

TA x

You're kidding. Right?

... thats just cruel.

Wow ... let's start the body-image issues FROM BIRTH why don't we? It's not enough that people retouch photos before they put them on facebook or in albums that only they will see? It's not enough to have cameras that including "slimming" settings? Now we'll have a whole generation of babies being retouched from birth. Lovely.

My slapping hand is getting MIGHTY twitchy!

Newborns aren't exactly the prettiest sight to behold. I mean, every mom thinks her newborn baby is the beautiful thing ever, but even I look back at baby pictures and think one of my babies looked like a wrinkly scary old man (won't say which baby though).

But retouching babies? That's gone too far. Even if it's an ugly baby, I want to see THAT ugly baby, not some glorified version!

And my wrinkly-old-man baby is totally precious and adorable now. Newborns just aren't that cute.

It's kind of sad, for the baby and it's parents. What kind of a decision making process do you go through? Yea, my two week old doesn't have enough hair, so lets add a little bit of it on top, not so much the sides. And her skin is kinda icky so let's just smooth that out, don't wanna see the little blemishes, someone might think that it wasn't my precious vagina that she came out of, because let's face it, anything that comes out of me is perfect and I won't have the world see anything other than pure perfection.
And what's the baby going to think when she/he finds out later on in life that she/he wasn't pretty enough to be shown to the world?
Damn you, Photoshop! Why must you be so available and affordable?! Ugh!

And the other thing is that all this retouching is going to make the babies start to all look like each other. Pretty soon we're going to all be striving to look like clones. Bad enough that all body types are told to look like skinny little boys. Now all babies have to look the same too.

Exactly, I agree with lethological gourmet. Clones! Why do we all want to look like the "ideal" standard that someone set when we are all so unique and different. I have a skin pigment disease and so I have spots on my body where there is no melanin and its white. My wedding photographer offered to airbrush those out and I was so offended. I said absolutely not! That's who I am. I mean sure, as a vain teenager I might have taken him up on that, but I've come to realize how they make me unique and me, and besides, my husband says he loves it :o)

What? You mean, you all thought beauty politics started at BIRTH? Try pre-conception! Are we all forgetting the whole controversy over egg banks stocked exclusively with the ovulated dollops of the strictly supermodel-beautiful? Why, those would-be cover babies were destined to be socially engineered before they were even a twinkle in their shallow, label-wearing, overpriced hipster vodka-drinking parents' empty, empty eyes.

with 3D ultrasounds, i think we can start worrying about standards of beauty BEFORE birth - which is ideal. If they have a big nose, or something, maybe a little pre-birth rhinoplasty would take care of that.

Yeah, let's get those ultrasounds retouched!
I personally LOVE my kids' newborn photos; they crack me up! Let's face it, when you push an 8-pound person out of an opening the size of a Krispy Kreme, they're gonna look a little funny for a bit!

Keeping it real! I love your site...thanks! :)

are you kidding me?! AAGGHGGH!! Considering I have spent most of the day crying over my baby's newborn pictures (b/c he is one today and I cannot cope) --this just makes me so mad/sad. The squishy red faces and cone heads are what makes them NEWBORNS!!

Really, I blame ER for this. Once George Clooney started delivering 3 month olds and trying to pass them off as "newborns" it all went down hill. You know people are retouching their newborn photos - at least this way, it's done professionally. Because it's about the *quality* of photoshopping you can afford these days. Sheesh, people;)

screw retouching pictures....can we retouch the baby? a little nip/tuck?

i think the fact babies are squishy and red and puffy is half of their appeal. i haven;t figured out the other half yet, probably because I haven't had one. Or been near one for more than half an hour at a time.

www.everygymsnightmare.com

whaha :) but that baby has huuuuuge nose. show me someone cuter please.

Ooh, ooh, this is SO great. Now we can get a real head start on those body-image issues, instead of waiting until the teenage years - cause let's face it, birth to six are the formative years, and if we wait till adolescence to grind them down, our kids might someday RECOVER from the emotional beating we're giving them. Nope, far better to get our licks in now so it's nicely burned into their tiny little brains that they'll never, ever really be good enough...

V.

P.S. Yes. I am being sarcastic. Just a little.

never mind. was goig to say something very not nice. BAD Fitarella! BAAAAD!

OMG! This is so horrible. What is wrong with people? I don't even have kids but I oohed and ahhed over my nieces and my new baby cousin when they were born. And that was day one, I didn't wait to see them until they were "cuter." I thought they were beautiful from the beginning. This is just sick and wrong.