It's A-Listers vs. Art Directors in a Showdown PHOTOSHOP

Folio: The Magazine for Magazine Management, August 1, 2003

Byline: DAVID MICHAEL GROSSMAN

Actors are used to morphing into all sorts of unlikely forms in high-tech action movies. And what star doesn't appreciate - indeed, demand - a little digital touch-up when mugging for a magazine cover? But when magazines cut-and-paste to create unauthorized images, increasingly the celebs are saying, "Where's my lawyer?"

The practice, which often involves retouching paparazzi shots, gained notoriety this spring when Jennifer Aniston, Julia Roberts, Kate Winslet, and Sarah Michelle Gellar all cried foul after magazines took artistic liberties with their images. Aniston accused Redbook of using parts of at least three shots for a cover image; the magazine admitted to putting Roberts's head on a four-year-old picture of her body. Winslet pointed a finger at British GQ for using digital tricks to make her legs more willowy, and Gellar got angry when a retouch job on Seventeen gave her a left arm that only Mary Shelley could love. More important, their protest poses ethical and legal questions for editors and art directors.

Aniston's publicist said that the actress objected to the "blatant manipulation of her image" and is pondering legal action. Such a claim may seem frivolous - after all, celebrities are public figures. But the extremes to which retouchers have gone in these cases could have consequences. "I think that if you mix and match the body parts and in some way misrepresent the artist, she has a series of possible claims," says Nancy J. Felsten, an intellectual property lawyer and a partner at Davis Wright Tremaine. She adds that mixing photos might be considered crossing the line between standard retouching and distortion of a celebrity's image. "I think it's risky," she says.

So where is the line between a digital touch-up and flat-out photographic identity theft? Until the four actresses started howling this spring, the practice had been gaining favor among editors as a not-so-secret weapon to get an uncooperative star on the cheap. It enabled editors to put newsstand-proven stars on their covers (often accompanied by write-around articles) while giving readers the sense that the celebrities had cooperated with the magazines.

For now, there are no clear definitions of acceptable unauthorized retouching, and - despite the publicity around the Jennifer, Julia, Kate, and Sarah incidents - celebrities and publications would prefer to keep the practice under wraps. After all, it's the airbrush artist's handiwork that keeps Liz and Barbra and Liza forever young on magazine covers. "Several of the celebrities who we retouch require quite a bit of work. In certain cases even the texture of their skin is completely rebuilt," says Phil Tsui, principal retoucher and partner at Resolution, a New York-based photo-retouching firm. "They are certainly not the perfect images you see in the final product."

The Redbook style of mixing and matching images has become commonplace, say photo editors. "So many shots are pieced together, it's only when they screw it up that it becomes an issue," says Tsui.

Meanwhile, magazines may be operating in a legal no-man's land. Although it may be hard for a star to prove defamation, publishers probably wouldn't enjoy learning how a jury reacts to an emotionally distraught Julia Roberts on the witness stand. After Roberts's manipulated Redbook cover was reported, Hearst issued an immediate mea culpa: "In an effort to make a cover that would pop on the newsstand, we combined two different shots of Julia Roberts."

Still, nobody expects editors to stop digital retouching, if for no other reason than it is cost-effective. "Very often, people will sit for these celebrity shoots, they'll do 15 rolls of film, and the star won't like any of them," says Bride Whelan, executive director of the Society of Publication Designers. "The whole thing is ruined. Publishers can't afford to do that anymore."

And picking up an existing shot is the only option when a star says no. With a little digital trickery, magazines no longer have to be at the mercy of stars and their publicists. That can level the field for titles lacking the cachet to draw the faces that pose for Vogue and Vanity Fair. Aniston, for example, had passed on Redbook because of a commitment to Harper's Bazaar.

For now, there seems to be a standoff: Celebrities control the commercial use of their image, but publications have a First Amendment right to use pictures editorially.

Will readers draw the line? Probably not, according to one insider. "I think it's much more of an issue for all of us within the industry than it ever would be for a reader," says Florian Bachleda, design director for Vibe. "As long as readers get what they want, they don't care how the sausage is made."