I figured I wouldn’t be writing anymore this year, but I just couldn’t let this go by unnoticed.
Being a graphic artist and a photographer I read (or page) through a lot of magazines and photographs (hence my interest in the National Geographic contest, and e.g. (little) projects in Photoshop and Lightroom).
So… The past days in between all the courses of food during the christmas holidays I was reading through the Esquire (American edition). Great magazine, for most part.
When I came to the end of the January issue I ran into this spread:
Esquire, January 2009 issue
For those of you who don’t know what a spread is: it’s a left and right page in a magazine. So whenever you open a magazine, whatever you have in front of you is a spread.
Don’t mind the quality of the scan (the guy looking like a freak isn’t due to the bad scan, he really looks like a freak 😉 ).
Now, I always thought that a quality magazine has quality graphics, quality editors and people who are able to produce graphically pleasing and responsible images. And usually this is the case in Esquire. However, this time… I don’t know if it was the stress to get everything out and mailed before Christmas or what, but what you see here is a plain awful butcher job. A very poorly executed example of copy-paste-rotate.
And they even took the head from the same spread. If anything in the graphic editing land is a big no-no, it’s that.
I’m sure the photographer shot 1000 pictures on this shoot and sure, that particular head on the left version of Adam Rapp may have looked a bit funny, but the mask could’ve been at least turned so that it looks as believable as on the right page.
And the person who did that, and the poor masking / cutting / pasting job, should get a boot up his behind.
Oh, and happy holidays once again!
Then use PS to make it LOOK like a mask! A simple highlight streak on one side, with a slight shadow on the other… both with a bit of texture…. and voila! He’s wearing a mask, how cool!…or dumb idea regardless. No caption necessary.
HES WEARING A MASK!
hehe 🙂
Duh ***** RESEARCH
Reply deleted due to unnecessary rudeness
(arno)
1. As many have pointed out, he’s wearing a mask–its indicated in the magazine caption.
2. If #1 hadn’t been the case, have a little compassion for the poor retoucher. Sometimes we’re asked, nay, commanded to do something that we know looks like ca-ca. Trust me on this.
read previous posts before posting: The problem is, these post need to be confirmed to be published. The posters couldnt see the reactions because there simply werent any. The avalanche of the same posts is the result of this.
ouch.
for gods sake! don’t say how the magazine explains this again, don’t quote again, don’t paste a link to the actual website, stop it!
I actually fell for it ’cause it’s so common these days with everybody and his brother using photoshop in every which way and skill level possible.
Now that you know, go home take a break and do something worthwhile.
…Duh! He is wearing a mask!…
(im being sarcastic! – did it really need 20+ people to say the same thing?
If you read the text it actually states that two of the guys are wearing masks (the face of the seated guy). I’m guessing they printed them out onto card and were wearing them for the photoshoot.
That’s a mask, I’m afraid. But good advice all the same.
…you do realize it says ‘*he’s the guy in the middle, the other guys are just wearing masks,’ doncha?
😉
Hope you have a more productive new year!
Didn’t you read the text of the article? Look at the asterisk next to Adam Rapp’s name – then look further down the page to the bit that says “He’s the guy in the middle – the others are just wearing masks”. It’s Adam Rapp with two guys wearing Adam Rapp masks.
The fine print on the photo spread says:
Adam Rapp*
*He’s the guy in the middle – the others are just wearing masks.
Still, not nearly bad enough/good enough to be effective. And why do it at all?
it’s a deliberate joke. It’s just about too small to read in your image, but it’s legible on Esquire’s website:
“Adam Rapp*
Playwright, author of Stone Cold Dead Serious, Red Light Winter, and Kindness.
*He’s the guy in the last slide — this guy’s just wearing a mask.”
I think that’s intentional. In the quote from the guy on the page, he says: “A central question in anyone’s life is, Who do I want to get stuck in a room with? That’s usually what my plays are about, people getting stuck in a room together, and I always feel more alive when I’m with other people. Life is about being part of a community, and any meaning you find in it comes from how you affect that community.”
So, visual smartassery.
hey! his head is pasted in BOTH pictures!!!
i can’t decide wich is the phonniest one. The face looks like it cames from a flash amateur picture!
the skin tone don’t even match with neck and hands. and we better don’t speak about lighting direction…
It says the guys left and right of the sitting man are wearing masks in the text. “Graphic artists” should learn to read 😉
I saw the actual print edition, and somewhere in the caption for the clothing it says the model is wearing a mask of whoever that supposedly famous person is. This isn’t photoshopped.
He’s wearing a bloody mask.
See all those funny symbols next to the picture on the recto page? It’s called text and if you figure out how to decipher it, you’ll find it is in this language called English. It explains in English that the model in the photos is wearing a mask. It is not a hacked photoshop job.
So here is one more tip: NEVER-, no exceptions make a blog posting tearing up a colleague’s work without at least reading the caption. It’s a big no-no.
It’s a mask. It says in the captions.
If you go to the Esquire website, next to the image it explains the other guy is wearing a mask – its not Photoshopped. I think the image is a play on the accompanying quote from the playwright featured in the shot (the guy sitting down) which is part of the article, and the two others are wearing masks of his face – “A central question in anyone’s life is, Who do I want to get stuck in a room with? That’s usually what my plays are about, people getting stuck in a room together, and I always feel more alive when I’m with other people.”
FYI
The weird cut and paste job is actually a guy wearing a mask. “*He’s the guy in the last slide — this guy’s just wearing a mask.” – Esquire Mag.
third bit of text says “he’s the guy in the middle, the other two are wearing masks.” Noticed that at the Esquire site and thought it was a hasty mea culpa, but it’s right there in print.
It’s supposed to be like this. It’s even written in the caption to that picture in the magazine itself.
As per the Esquire site;
http://www.esquire.com/style/fashion-story/mens-winter-fashion-0109?click=main_sr
“*He’s the guy in the last slide — this guy’s just wearing a mask.”
In the spread, the guys on the left and right (the freaky looking supposed c&p jobs) are wearing flat masks of the guy in the middle.
Assuming this is true: It’s weird as hell, but it doesn’t seem to be a copy/paste disaster.
I’m afraid its not a Photoshop at all. They explain on their website, and probably on the text of the page, in regards to the right page, “Adam Rapp* *He’s the guy in the last slide — this guy’s just wearing a mask.” http://www.esquire.com/style/fashion-story/mens-winter-fashion-0109?click=main_sr (go to the 8th and 9th slide). So, the buggy eyed dude is just another dude wearing a paper mask of the first dude. I think. Its all very confusing and disorienting.
IT’S. A. MASK.
jesus.
dude, it’s a mask (see annotation on slide 9 here: http://www.esquire.com/style/fashion-story/mens-winter-fashion-0109?click=main_sr)!
No photoshop involved, the two other models are wearing masks, and it even says so in the mag.
Except the guys on the right and left are wearing masks of the guy in the middle, which Esquire says in both the magazine and on the website.
So, it’s not so much a design no-no as a creepy, cheap effect that very much resembles a horrible Photoshop job.
It’s a mask.
As in… Someone wearing a mask. Even in the slide show, for the right page, it says
“*He’s the guy in the last slide — this guy’s just wearing a mask.”
Not a mistake. If you read the copy, it will explain that the models to the left and right are wearing flat MASKS of the guy in the middle. Not a photoshop copy&paste.
They did it in a previous issue too, where other models all wore the same Steve McQueen mask.
You should send that in to photoshopdisasters.com
Haha, the guy looks like Frankenstein, in both pictures, but in the “loose head” pic especially. Funny also how the other guy’s shoulder and hand don’t extend to the other page but his leg does…
He really looks quite weird in that photo…um.. both photos. Strange bulging eyes. And perhaps just because the expression is so peculiar it is even easier to recognize in the other page of the spread.