To think Mum complaining about school photo retouching is being a bit, er, touchy

[justgoandgetalife]

School photo retouching service has been withdrawn after one Mum complained? Never mind that the company says it's a popular service. If she doesn't like it she can ask for the photo to be left untouched. It's all digital now after all.

When I ran a photo to canvas business we always asked the customer first if they actually wanted certain things retouching (sensitively of course) so maybe the company could just have asked?

Still up to the customer as we often used to remove whole people (ex-partners usually!) from photos or add people in so it's perfectly do-able. A pain for the photo service but that's why they cost!

i have a pic of my son in soft focus, it's bloody horrible, people generally want school photos to be sharp, true and of their child not retouched imo anyway.

Yanbu at all, dd had some food on her face, there was the option to retouch it, so we did. I don't want a picture with food on her face, especially if it's going to family. She also had a red nose as she had a cold, so that was retouched too.

I don't think there is any need to retouch a photo of a child.

If children have food on their face don't buy the picture and complain to school about letting children sit with food on their face.

Ridiculous to withdraw the option just because one person complained (if that's the full story - obviously there could be other factors we don't know about).

I'd prefer not to have photos touched up if it's to remove permanent features like birth marks, moles etc; on the other hand if one of the DCs had a cut or something that wasn't permanent, I'd probably choose to have that removed.

The services offered for the retouching were for blemishes, acne and facial lines. As well as marks on jumpers

That to me is really wrong. There is enough airbrushing in the celeb world without young children being offered retouching for their school photos.

Marks on jumpers? Maybe, but advertising to retouch blemishes and facial lines is ridiculous.

I used to do a lot of photography and went through a stage where I used to soften skin when I was playing with photoshop to see how it all works so I have some really funny photos. Never would I ask a parent if they wanted me to cover up lines or blemishes.

The service wasn't available when my two oldest were little and I don't know whether I would have used it but looking back at the nursery and primary school photos there are very few of ds2 without a crop of cold sores over his face. He was already a poorly looking wee soul with his squint and glasses so I don't think it's a bad thing to have the option. He is, of course, an extremely handsome young man now who hates his school photos.

School pictures should capture the kid at the time, warts and all. Its part of the story so when you look back at them you can say. Gosh your hair was a disaster, look what you made me wear, wow isn't your skin better now, I couldn't keep you clean and tidy for 5 minutes.

Kids are kids not models.

I don't see a problem with removing temporary things like spots or say a cut. Just not reconstructive surgery via photoshop!

I wish this service was available when ds was at nursery. Gorgeous photo until your realise there's a bogey up his nose. It can't be unseen.

I'm firmly of the 'retouch the photo send your child a clear message their looks are not good enough' camp. Spots/ grazes/ scars. My daughter's mole (slightly off centre) was removed from a school photo. They claimed it must be too light etc, so I asked how come I can see the freckles over her face?
Photographer's don't get to decide if my child is attractive enough as is. Photography is for accuracy, documentation. To me. I realise the Instagram filter lovers disagree. As was in yesterday's paper

This has just reminded me, when my dad married my evil stepmother, they were too tight didn't want a photographer, so asked ExH to bring his fancy camera.

Evil stepsister spent the whole night being vile to us all, and when she was finally forced to stand for a 'parents and both sets of kids' photo, made snidey comments under her breath about my dress, my brother's new girlfriend and god knows what else.

So before ExH and I gave dad the disc of the photos, we touched them up so that evil stepsister had a shiny face, smudged make up and was a few pounds heavier in all of the photos of her

Gosh...I wouldn't be happy. Too much emphasis these days on having the 'perfect' photo - girls taking endless selfies, photo shopping of celebrities so they look amazing.

Kids need to know that 'normal' is just fine as it is. I think it sends the wrong signal.

We have some truly awful pictures of DD - I think she does handstands and cartwheels just before the photo...only explanation for the hair!

I've had my children's photos retouched before - IIRC, I asked them to remove the reflection of the umbrella thing they use to bounce light onto the child which was making their eyes look bizarre.

I would be happy to have food etc removed.

I've just remembered I retouched DS2s passport photo once to reduce the redness of a fresh scar on his forehead when he was 5.

I think these things are different to removing birth marks etc.

I'm all for offering the service when there's a stubborn mark on the clothes. But DD's nursery photographer had erased her little birthmark out BEFORE sending us the proofs! Apparently she thought it was a bruise. However nice the resulting photo was, we did not buy any of them.

I didn't know this was a thing.

I don't know if it is a cultural thing but some people we know had a horrible airbrushed photo of their child, and seemed quite proud of it, but they were from another country and I wasn't sure if that was the trendy thing iyswim.

I'd rather an honest photo of my child, whatever they look like. Otherwise I may as well stick a picture of someone else's kid on the wall, or Barbie, or something.

Well it's just an option so why have they withdrawn it completely? Surely, they send out the proofs with a general 'if you would like to use our retouching service please let us know'. So if my child spills yogurt down his top at lunch I still have the option of him looking like he is wearing the pristine top I sent him in that morning!!

If it were to remove food from clothing or there was a reflection from their glasses or something non- face related, I'd be fine with it.
However. Retouching facial features and blemishes etc is letting kids know that perfection is the norm.....and that imperfection isn't desirable.
Check out this video which highlights the problem....so sad

I wish I could get the photo company to retouch DS1s school photo and straighten his tie. He's nearly 17 FFs, can he not make some kind of effort to look tidy?!

I would like to give him a digital haircut too because his floppy hair looks ridiculous :)

I didn't know retouching school photo was a thing either - how depressing.

I'm glad the mum complained because I don't think retouching should be normalised in any walk of life. DCs get messy and have squinty ties. Their hair never sits right. They have ink on their faces and chocolate round their mouths. That's what childhood is like and if that's what they look like in their school photos then that's ok with me.

Otherwise, as a PP said, you'd be as well just keeping the model pic that comes with the frame. If you have a super -neat DC then that's how they'll look in the pics. If you one with a double crown whose hair never sits right looking at you DS then that's what he'll look like in his pic. I wouldn't want them to pretend it was different.