{"id":227,"date":"2008-08-09T22:29:52","date_gmt":"2008-08-09T20:29:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.ultimatefatburner.com\/wordpress\/?p=227"},"modified":"2015-02-14T17:34:50","modified_gmt":"2015-02-14T22:34:50","slug":"looks-can-be-deceiving","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ultimatefatburner.com\/ufb-blog\/looks-can-be-deceiving\/","title":{"rendered":"Looks Can Be Deceiving"},"content":{"rendered":"

Paul and I had an e-mail exchange\u00a0concerning\u00a0his recent\u00a0review of\u00a0a diet supp\u00a0called “Prescopodene<\/a>“.\u00a0\u00a0He sent me a link to the site\u00a0– to me, it looked just like dozens of other internet supp sites I’ve seen.\u00a0 Y’know, the hottie in a bikini;\u00a0claims of scientific validation; big, eye-catching display fonts, testimonials – the usual stuff.\u00a0\u00a0And – of course – there was a picture of a smiling doctor, next to a product recommendation\u00a0from\u00a0a “Dr. Robert Johnson, Ph.D.”\u00a0\u00a0It turned out that the pic of the doctor actually came from a stock photo archive like this one<\/a>.\u00a0 We both had a good laugh about it, as it was such a transparent tactic.<\/p>\n

But on second thought, it occurred to me that maybe this wasn’t so funny.\u00a0 I know all about stock photos, after all, as I use them to illustrate some of the e-books and articles I produce.\u00a0 But how many people who read ads realize that professionally-produced photos of “doctors”, “nurses” and “scientists” can be had for comparatively little money?\u00a0 These pics lend credibility to claims of scientific validity, yet they’re as phony as a three-dollar bill.<\/p>\n

There are other visual tricks you might not know about, either.\u00a0 Take those “before” and “after” pics, for example.\u00a0\u00a0These look\u00a0convincing, ’cause they feature ordinary folks, and\u00a0– as we all know – the camera doesn’t lie.\u00a0<\/p>\n

ROFLMAO.<\/p>\n

Now, I’ve written before about the sophisticated Photoshop\u00a0artistry<\/a>\u00a0used to create beauties out of more ordinary-looking people.\u00a0\u00a0I’m no expert myself,\u00a0but I’ve seen\u00a0the work of people who are –\u00a0guys like Deke McClelland<\/a> and Mark Monciardini<\/a>\u00a0can produce some amazing\u00a0stuff.\u00a0\u00a0But the reality is that one need not be an expert to “enhance” pics…there are also some pretty simple, yet effective\u00a0tricks\u00a0that can be used.\u00a0 Just to demonstrate, I’ve subtlely\u00a0altered one of my own recent photos:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The pic on the left was taken last week…that’s the real me.\u00a0 My husband thinks it’s a “hot” pic, but I actually look kinda chunky, compared\u00a0to my alter ego on the right –\u00a0who looks\u00a0a good 5+ pounds thinner.\u00a0 How did I do it?\u00a0 It was pretty simple, really…I opened the pic in Photoshop,\u00a0selected the whole thing, chose the “Edit>Distort” function, grabbed\u00a0the\u00a0“handle” on the right side of the pic,\u00a0and dragged it a few millmeters to the left.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In other words, I just gave the entire pic a little\u00a0“squeeze.”<\/p>\n

This made my face look a little too thin and stretched, so I selected the area of the pic above my neck, and repeated the process, only this time, “squashing” the\u00a0top down a bit to\u00a0restore a more normal look.<\/p>\n

The whole thing took about 5 minutes.\u00a0 Maybe I should start my own diet pill site…”Former University Research Scientist Discovers Weight Loss Secret: Lose 5 Pounds In Only 5 Minutes!”\u00a0 Hmmmm… \ud83d\ude00<\/p>\n

Jokes aside, the point is that people can easily be made to look somewhat thinner than they really are…no whiz-bang\u00a0techniques required.\u00a0 You don’t even have to own Photoshop to do it…there are lots of inexpensive, lower end programs\u00a0you can use to\u00a0perform this\u00a0same, basic operation.<\/p>\n

And yes, the process can be used in the other direction too, so “fat” pictures can be made to look fatter.\u00a0 It wouldn’t be hard to make a modest change\u00a0look\u00a0more dramatic\u00a0– it’s all in the contrast.<\/p>\n

As Paul and I have pointed out before, you can’t always take what you read in an ad\u00a0at face value.\u00a0 Needless to state, this also holds true for what you see.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Paul and I had an e-mail exchange\u00a0concerning\u00a0his recent\u00a0review of\u00a0a diet supp\u00a0called “Prescopodene“.\u00a0\u00a0He sent me a link to the site\u00a0– to me, it looked just like dozens of other […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3,9,28,29],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ultimatefatburner.com\/ufb-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/227"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ultimatefatburner.com\/ufb-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ultimatefatburner.com\/ufb-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ultimatefatburner.com\/ufb-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ultimatefatburner.com\/ufb-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=227"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.ultimatefatburner.com\/ufb-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/227\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8530,"href":"https:\/\/www.ultimatefatburner.com\/ufb-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/227\/revisions\/8530"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ultimatefatburner.com\/ufb-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=227"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ultimatefatburner.com\/ufb-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=227"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ultimatefatburner.com\/ufb-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=227"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}