Relephant reads:

Before & After Photoshop.

The Truth Behind Photoshop. {Video}

Model of the Photoshop Editing Video Speaks Up about Unrealistic Transformation. {Video}

East Carolina University photography student Anna Hill taught herself Photoshop at the age of 14.

As a result, she says she can see exactly how models in ads and magazines have been altered. While she may be aware of this, many are not.

Even those of us who know that nearly all commercial images we see has been altered in some way, we often don’t know just how extreme it can be. In order to show the extent that some advertisers and magazine editors take, Hill created a series of four mock ads featuring herself.

The results are both darkly funny and provocative. They also show just how futile it can be to pursue the sort of perfection that is promised to us in such ads.

Hill says that one of her main goals in doing this project was to show women that “models aren’t actually as real as they seem—without extensive makeup and editing, many don’t look that much better than the rest of us.”

She’s right.

See more of her work here.

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Editor: Bryonie Wise