Above Left: Cover of The Economist; Right: Original, unedited Reuters photo.

The Economist is under fire by the New York Times for editing a photo for their recent cover. To their credit, The Economist fully admitted to editing the photo and here’s what they had to say about it…

I was editing the paper the week we ran the image of President Obama with the oil rig in the background. Yes, Charlotte Randolph was edited out of the image (Admiral Allen was removed by the crop). We removed her not to make a political point, but because the presence of an unknown woman would have been puzzling to readers.

We often edit the photos we use on our covers, for one of two reasons. Sometimes — as with a cover we ran on March 27 on U.S. health care, with Mr. Obama with a bandage round his head — it’s an obvious joke. Sometimes — as with an image of President Chavez on May 15 on which we darkened the background, or with our “It’s time” cover … endorsing Mr. Obama, from which the background was removed altogether — it is to bring out the central character. We don’t edit photos in order to mislead.

I asked for Ms. Randolph to be removed because I wanted readers to focus on Mr. Obama, not because I wanted to make him look isolated. That wasn’t the point of the story. “The damage beyond the spill” referred to on the cover, and examined in the cover leader, was the damage not to Mr. Obama, but to business in America.

I was going to write up a lengthy post stating my opinion on this, but instead I think I will just go with: “What Stephen Colbert said…”

Outside Magazine got called out the other day by their very own cover boy, Lance Armstrong. He tweeted…

Pictured above is the cover he tweeted about. Outside Shopped onto Armstrong’s plain t-shirt “38. BFD.” The “38″ stands for Armstrong’s age and – I imagine – the “BFD” stands for that infamous Joe Biden-ism “Big Fucking Deal”. To their credit, Outside printed a disclaimer on the cover: “Note: Not Armstrong’s real T-shirt” and offered up an explanation after Lance’s initial complaint, but that did not satisfy Armstrong. Rightfully so, if Outside wanted to use that visual story angle they should have told Armstrong about the concept ahead of time – not after the fact – because it is obviously a BFD to Lance.

One of my favorite blogs, Photoshop Disasters, posted this gem today – a cover of the Portuguese magazine Executive Digest…

I think the magnitude of this Photoshop Disaster speaks for itself – that face simply does not go with the rest of that body! After doing a little photo research I discovered the above cover image is a composite made from a posed portrait of former Gillette Executive James M. Kilts and a Gillette Fusion ad from Korea featuring Park Ji-sung…

[click to enlarge image]

At least Executive Digest kept the images that formed this Photoshop Disaster all in the Gillette family.

Above: Two of Spy magazine’s infamous “spoof” covers – Hillary Clinton as a dominatrix (from 1993) and George Bush Sr. with “cutout hair” (from 1989).

Spy magazine was a publication known for the manipulated images which often graced the covers, and the satirical wit which always occupied the inside pages. Spy ran monthly from October 1986 to May 1993, and now founder Kurt Andersen has put all 71 covers online for your viewing pleasure. (The only drawback is the small images can’t be enlarged.)

Anderson says of Spy’s manipulated covers…

Realistic digital manipulation of existing pictures was newly possible back  then, but difficult and incredibly expensive — the first primitive Photoshop software didn’t appear until 1990 — and probably the best of our giant-computer-generated covers were Ted Kennedy being splashed with water (November 1987), Jerry Lewis & Dean Martin brawling for “Feuds” (November 1988), the pregnant naked Bruce Willis (July 1991), Hillary Clinton as a dominatrix (January 1993) and Bill Clinton as Pinocchio (May 1993).

[view the gallery of SPY covers]

Oh Spy, how I miss thee…

Taylor Swift on the cover of OOPS! magazine

OOPS! is right – as in “OOPS! We over Shopped Taylor Swift’s face and made her look like Catwoman!” Ugh. [Photo source: Journal-Plaza.net]

Related articles…

What Did ‘Oops!’ Magazine Do To Taylor Swift’s Face? [Hollywood Life]

The Photoshop Awards: Taylor Swift On Oops! Magazine [dlisted]

How Do You Say “Scary” In Russian? [Jezebel]