In a release from the National Advertising Division, they approved of Proctor & Gamble’s decision to “discontinue mascara advertising” that falsely purported that some of their products would give you “2X more volume” compared to regular eyelashes and that it was “20% lighter” than the most expensive alternative. The product at issue, CoverGirl NatureLuxe Mousse Mascara, did not deliver on P&G’s promise because, well, it couldn’t. The “effect” of the mascara on the model depicted in the ad were “enhanced in post production.”

P&G were hoping to slide by NAD’s watchful eye by including a disclaimer on their ad that basically disavowed themselves of any responsibility when consumers got home, applied the mascara, and then realized that their lashes look nothing like the lashes on the model in the CoverGirl ad. NAD director Andrea Levine explained their objection to P&G’s ad further with Business Insider after they asked her if this was a “de facto ban on all Photoshop”:

“You can’t use a photograph to demonstrate how a cosmetic will look after it is applied to a woman’s face and then – in the mice type – have a disclosure that says ‘okay, not really.’”

Business Inside also provided an elaboration of NAD’s decision to stop P&G’s use of photoshopped images:

“… [P&G] advised NAD it has permanently discontinued all of the challenged claims and the photograph in its advertisement. NAD was particularly troubled by the photograph of the model – which serves clearly to demonstrate (i.e., let consumers see for themselves) the length and volume they can achieve when they apply the advertised mascara to their eyelashes. This picture is accompanied by a disclosure that the model’s eyelashes had been enhanced post production.”

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/us-moves-toward-banning-use-of-photoshop-in-cosmetics-ads-2011-12#ixzz1gjooQXV5

Who can argue with that?

NAD’s decision to curb P&G’s use of ads that promise unrealistic results could have a big impact on how they advertise their other products (you’ve probably used some of them at some point in your life) not to mention how other corporations use post-production enhancement to sell you products that will never do what they say they will do.

To see some of the more drastic effects that one talented graphic whateverartist can do with Photoshop, check out Natalia Taffarel’s website. If we don’t see actors and models and musicians photoshopped within an inch of their life in magazines anymore, we won’t actually recognize anybody ever again.

View more daily video round-ups here.

YouTube for Schools:

The Verge reviews the Motorola Xoom 2:

WebProNews interviews SocialCode CEO Laura O’Shaughnessy about social holiday spending:

Lifehacker shares some coding basics:

BBC’s recent Mark Zuckerberg documentary:

Another view of Google Earth:

Kevin Rose, Leo Laporte and Sarah Lane at LeWeb:

Ben Parr at LeWeb:

Robert Scoble and Dennis Crowley at LeWeb:

Photoshop hidden gem:

For those of you who have been hiding the desire to do Steve Jobs as a zombie, this contest is for you, and no, I’m not really concerned about the “too soon” aspect of that statement. Of course, the recently-departed Jobs does not have to be the only person of interest, because, as many of us know, there are tons of tech celebrities to pick from.

Mark Zuckerberg, for one, looks like he’d make a great Jesse Eisenberg. Oh, wait. That’s too easy.

You get the idea, however. Bill Gates as a the Crypt Keeper or Matt Cutts as a pimp. There are too many options to list here, so get to work on your images. On the incentive side of things, the winner of this year’s competition receives having the site of their choice featured in an upcoming WebProWorld newsletter, as well as having their image featured in a WebProNews article covering the contest.

So yeah, free publicity, something that should never be overlooked in the web industry. The contest ends on Friday, October the 28th, so get cracking.

For more daily video round-ups, go here.

MacRumors points to a pair of iPhone 4S hands on (and Siri) demos from YouTube:

The ad for this phone is apparently in danger of being banned in the UK for being too scary:

Eric Schmidt speaks at the Kenexa World Conference:

Stephen Wolfram talks about the background and vision of Mathematica:

John Carpenter’s The Thing: The Musical:

Sneak peek of Photoshop image debarring from Adobe MAX:

Chinese internet users have taken a fairly egregious editing error and run with it. Late Sunday evening, an article was posted to the government website of Huili County, China. Huili county is part of the Sichuan Provine and is under the adminstration of the Liangshan Yi Autonomous Prefecture.

The article, about upgrades to road conditions within the county, had a photo with three government officials on the scene who appear to be discussing the road conditions. The only problem is that the photo is so clearly photoshopped that it’s laughable. Apparently one user who spotted this error posted it to a Chinese internet forum and said:

I had nothing to do today so I visited the website for our county government. The headline story was about the upgrade for the road to the countryside. I looked at the photo and I almost coughed out half a liter of blood! Even a rank amateur like myself can tell that this was a PhotoShop job, and they had the nerve to put this on the home page!

So many people visited the government website that it was down for a brief period of time. Here’s the photo in question -

Chinese internet users took the photo began creating their own Photoshop masterpieces. I present to you, some winners of the Levitating Government Officials meme, courtesy of the Chinese site tt.mop.com -

When this began to go viral, the Huili County Government went into damage control mode. They set up an account on Weibo, which is China’s version of Twitter, just to address the Photoshop faux pas. On Weibo, they said that government officials did in fact go on site for the road inspection, but the original photos weren’t very clear. They also said that they learned a lesson from all this and thanked the internet community for their criticism.

They also posted what are supposed to be the original photos from the road inspection. Check them out for yourself but in my opinion, the argument could be made that they still look a bit off.

Photoshop disasters are some of the best things on the internet, hands down. If you have some time to kill, may I suggest browsing through the Top 20 Photoshop Disasters of 2010 as judged by PSDisasters.com.

That’s all going to change soon. Adobe demoed a new full version of Photoshop at Photoshop World 2011. Here’s a brief clip uploaded to YouTube, which shows the new Photoshop in action:

(Tip of the hat to Photography Bay and zaone on YouTube).

The way this version handles layers looks particularly cool.

A fully-functioning version of Photoshop for the iPad (and other tablets) would no doubt make the devices an even more attractive option for businesses/enterprises.  Of course, there are already plenty of apps in the App Store that can easily be used to replace many features of Photoshop (for a lot less money, I might add), but Photoshop is still the leader of its genre of applications.

Adobe has not put a release date on Photoshop for iPad, but designers and businesses that are already heavily using iPads will certainly be eagerly awaiting it.

On a related note, Adobe also introduced the Photoshop Family Feedback site at feedback.photoshop.com. This is simply a place where users can leave ideas and requests for the Photoshop team, as you may have guessed. This could be particularly helpful in the development of the new iPad version.

Adobe is running an interesting contest right now. They are inviting people to upload a two minute length tutorial video to Vimeo sharing why they think that they should be the next Photoshop evangelist.

From Adobe: “submit a two-minute Photoshop video tutorial demonstrating why you should be the Next Photoshop Evangelist. Your video must use Photoshop CS5, a new Photoshop CS5 feature, and, to celebrate the 20th anniversary of Photoshop, incorporate the concept of “20″ somewhere in the final image. Have fun!”

Once you make your video you submit it to their Vimeo group here.

Adobe will then select up to 12 finalists where the general membership of their Facebook Photoshop Community will vote on which finalist video is the best for the Grand Prize.

The Grand Prize winner will receive a copy of Creative Suite 5 Design Standard, a trip to Photoshop World (Spring 2011), the chance to demo their tutorial at the conference, roundtrip coach airfare, lodging and meals. All Finalists will also be showcased on the Photoshop YouTube channel.

So Adobe’s incorporating Vimeo in this one. YouTube. And even Facebook. A nice contest that touches on a lot of the social web.

Personally I think someone could do something pretty creative with the new painting features using the mixer brush that’s new in CS5. By the way, here is my own review on the new CS5 from a few months back.

Submissions must be in by August 24th.

Good luck!

Comments

Adobe’s TOS now reads:

"Adobe has retained only those limited rights that allow us to operate the service and to enable you to do all the things the service offers,” the company said in a statement. “If you decide to terminate your Photoshop Express account, Adobe’s rights also will be terminated."

By relaxing their TOS and adding a clause into the agreement that Adobe’s rights cease if a user terminates their account this gives photographers a lot more protection with regards to using the service.

I haven’t actually used the service yet myself. I tried to sign up for it but the site kept returning blank pages. Could be a flash issue. Hopefully I’ll be able to try it and report back at some point in the future.

Comments

How does "record revenue of $911.2 million" sound?  Or "34 percent year-over-year growth"?  Investors certainly seemed to enjoy those phrases, as Adobe’s stock has climbed as high as $43.97 today (it’s now resting at $42.20, compared to a close yesterday of about $40.90).

The performance also beat analysts’ expectations, and what’s more, Adobe seems ready to do well again in the future.  Share repurchase programs, product launches – there’s no reason to believe Adobe won’t achieve at least the 13 percent growth in annual revenue it’s announced as a target for 2008.

Assuming, of course, that the market doesn’t shift, the economy doesn’t crash, and California doesn’t break off from the rest of the U.S.  "Adobe is not recession-proof, but we do think the company is demonstrating a certain level of resilience to any current slowdown and the stock is partly defensive in the current environment given the product cycle," said Jefferies & Co. analyst Ross MacMillan, according to the AP.

Here’s hoping that Adobe’s resilience will last and that the slowdown, in any case, won’t.

Google Scares Up Free Photoshop

Martin LaMonica and Mike Ricciuti over at CNet chatted up Adobe CEO Bruce Chizen, who said the company is taking its Photoshop product online before Google can shove its big butt in the way.

The Web-version of Photoshop, which is to launch sometime within the next six months, will follow a model Google has proven works, and works better than a lot of people thought it would – it will be an advertising supported server-based application.

Just last week, Adobe laid down a precursor to this with its Remix video editing mashup for Photobucket. The most telling quote from the CNet article:

It’s something we are sensitive to because we are watching folks like Google do it in different categories, and we want to make sure that we are there before they are, in areas of our franchises," Chizen said.

This isn’t to say Adobe is abandoning its flagship off-the-shelf software. From the sound of it, Adobe plans to make its Photoshop Web-version just enough better than other Web-based photo applications to get people using it instead of…Picasa, for example.

For the scores of publications, designers, and photographic artistes out there, insistent upon top shelf (i.e., not common) tools, there’s sure to be a more enhanced version you have to actually get from a store. Besides, as Chizen notes, there are a number of things that need to be done without that annoying Internet lag.

Adobe’s new strategy may be a lesson to other companies still waiting to see if the Web is a viable marketplace for their product. It is viable, and if you wait too long, companies like Google are going to beat you to it.

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