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Photoshop Disasters

Started by An tSaoi, August 23, 2009, 02:50:52 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

Suttonpubcrawl

Is either of those heads in the microsoft web page the original head? If so, which is it? I just can't work it out, they both look equally unsuited to the body.

Baxter

The sight of a black man not wearing a flight-suit strikes you as 'unsuitable'?

You fucking Racist!

Ambient Sheep

Courtesy of someone on this Reddit thread (linked to from this Photoshop Disasters page):



Or, indeed, http://microlove.ytmnd.com/

An tSaoi

I love the way they didn't bother changing the skin tone of the black man's hands.

Suttonpubcrawl

To be fair, I don't think it is actually racist if the one without the black bloke is aimed at the Polish market, as there are almost no black people in Poland so the presence of one in a promotional picture would make it plainly apparent that it was just Microsoft cynically recycling marketing material aimed at one market in another. You know, like when you get an advert here that's clearly American but they dub the accents to make them sound English, despite the fact that the crap picture quality and poor lip-synching makes it apparent it's not.

But it BEGS THE QUESTION why they left the other bloke, who ain't exactly Mr White Pride, untouched.

Phil_A


The slapped-togetherness of this cover always bothered me. Never mind the massively unamusing pint glass/baby's bottle centrepiece, just look at how the weird positioning makes Quentin and Ash appear as giants towering above the curiously midget-like Clunes and Morrissey.



This later release has managed to make it even worse by inexplicably flipping the picture of Ash the other way, and giving Morrissey and Clunes a sort-of Ready Brek halo effect. Also note disembodied arm.


jaydee81

Quote from: Suttonpubcrawl on August 26, 2009, 09:57:38 AM
plainly apparent that it was just Microsoft cynically recycling marketing material

Yeah! I like my Microsoft material homegrown!

Shoulders?-Stomach!



It's hard to tell here, but when you pick up the case, Peter Capaldi just seems completely out of place- wrong lighting, a bit airbrushed. As soon as I clapped eyes on it it made me think of this thread. Not that it's anywhere near as bad as those Colin Firth ones.


The Duck Man



This image doesn't really do justice to how horrible that DVD cover is. They look very weird indeed. And they chose a horrible picture of the lovely Jenna Fischer. She looks like she's got a stinking cold.

Morrisfan82

A lot of these are dancing around that fine line between a montage that's trying to look like a coherent ensemble photo and a montage that's just a montage.

Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth

Steve Carrell looks like someone has forced him to try and resemble Jon Hamm from Mad Men.

An tSaoi

Quote from: Phil_A on August 26, 2009, 10:31:01 AM

Not to keen on the spunk in the lower right corner.

Quote from: Muteki on August 26, 2009, 01:21:09 PM
A lot of these are dancing around that fine line between a montage that's trying to look like a coherent ensemble photo and a montage that's just a montage.

Very true. In The Loop's poster is fine, it's not trying to be a real scene.

Famous Mortimer

Steve Carell's arm is the weirdest / worst thing about that image. Is it impossible to just gather the fuckers in a room and take a few photos?

The Masked Unit

I always thought the office cover as shown above was hand drawn or something. Nobody looks quite like themselves in it.

VegaLA


Ambient Sheep

Quote from: Suttonpubcrawl on August 26, 2009, 09:57:38 AMTo be fair, I don't think it is actually racist if the one without the black bloke is aimed at the Polish market, as there are almost no black people in Poland so the presence of one in a promotional picture would make it plainly apparent that it was just Microsoft cynically recycling marketing material aimed at one market in another. You know, like when you get an advert here that's clearly American but they dub the accents to make them sound English, despite the fact that the crap picture quality and poor lip-synching makes it apparent it's not.

I think you might be right, actually.  There were a few comments to that effect on the Reddit thread, one commentor went as far as to say this, which I thought was interesting:

QuoteAt the risk of sticking my head up and getting it shot off, I worked for a localization company and did this all the time. I never considered the racist overtones of this at the time (nobody did) - we saw it as all about making the images "less American" rather than "remove the black guys".

In our case we had US soft-skills training courses with lots of stock photography - photoshopping included taking earrings off big-permed women, painting lines on roads and removing road-signs and "changing the proportion of races used in the course" - it didn't mean removing all of a particular race although. For UK versions we would add in more south Asian and Black Caribbean

In hindsight I can see how it can be seen a certain way and how much it depends on the particular bent of the editor and photoshopper


Quote from: Suttonpubcrawl on August 26, 2009, 09:57:38 AMBut it BEGS THE QUESTION why they left the other bloke, who ain't exactly Mr White Pride, untouched.

According to the Reddit thread (again), and the PSD blog comments, the only ethnic minority that Poland has any decent amount of is Vietnamese, who were imported either four years ago or during communist times, depending which comment you believe.  Maybe both are true and they had two waves of Vietnamese immigration.  Oh, and also a few South Koreans, apparently, in recent years.

The fact that they left the oriental guy in and only took out the black guy does tend to support the "removed to make it look less blatantly imported" theory, rather than the "racist cunt" theory, I think.

Slaaaaabs

Quote from: The Duck Man on August 26, 2009, 01:05:55 PM


This image doesn't really do justice to how horrible that DVD cover is. They look very weird indeed. And they chose a horrible picture of the lovely Jenna Fischer. She looks like she's got a stinking cold.

What is weird is that they spent next to no time at all on the photoshoppery but shelled out for some lovely embossing on the blinds for the cardboard sleeve.

_Hypnotoad_


Paaaaul

Quote from: VegaLA on August 26, 2009, 03:22:10 PM
Stack me, that story made Engadget !

http://www.engadget.com/2009/08/25/microsoft-sucks-at-photoshop/
It was also on the BBC website and featured on Radio 5 at least twice today.

Futurebobbers

Ford did the exact same thing back in the 90s, and received similar media attention.

An tSaoi

It was on News 24 earlier.

mjki5gs2

The media seem to be missing the point entirely, even if it was racist, which I don't think it is, the greater crime would surely still be how poorly it's been done. I kind of expect that kind of shoddy stuff from The Mail etc, but that neck angle is positively Hawking-esque.

Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth

The crapness does seem to be the issue. Would there have been a reaction if they'd photoshopped a whole white man in, or reshot the advert?

An tSaoi

It's not to much the neck angle that annoys me, but the horrible blurry cloning of the windowsill where the black man's head was.

Edit: On reflection, there's no reason that part should be blurry. The original head wasn't actually covering that space at all.


ziggy starbucks

does anyone know what the 'Empower your people' font is on that microsoft jobby? many thanks

Blumf

Quote from: ziggy starbucks on August 28, 2009, 03:02:22 PM
does anyone know what the 'Empower your people' font is on that microsoft jobby? many thanks

Arial (Bold). It's Microsoft after all, so it's either that or Comic Sans.

Baxter

The arm of the 'r' is angled slightly down and the top angle of the t looks like it's angled upwards.

All crimes that point to Arial Bold (with the non-central middle bar on the E) and Arial



You bastard Ziggy.

ziggy starbucks

I dedicate this photoshop disaster to both baxter and blumf, my font identifying heroes