We all know that Photoshopping is pervasive in fashion magazines and advertising. But how much of a difference does it make really?


Photo editor Lauren Wade wanted to examine the pervasiveness of Photoshopping and airbrushing in media, so she took some of the world's best known Renaissance paintings and gave them the airbrush treatment.

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The result? A slimmed down Botticelli's Venus. Gauguin's Tahitian women without all of their beautiful rotundness. Raphael's Three Graces without all their glorious heft. By making these famous paintings conform to today's standards of beauty, we can see just how ridiculous they really are.

"We've taken a digital liquefy brush to the painstakingly layered oils of some of the most celebrated paintings of the female form, nipping and tucking at will," explained Wade. "There may be something sacrilegious in that, but the same could be said for our contemporary ideas of beauty." [Take Part]