Photoshop Persuasive Speech

Specific Purpose Statement
To inform the audience about the powers of Photoshop, how it is used, and it’s effect on society

Thesis Statement
Photoshop is software that allows people to digitally alter photographs quickly and easily, and many times it is responsible for the decline in people’s self-esteem.

Main Points
1. Explanation of Photoshop
2. The use of Photoshop in advertisements
3. Photoshop’s effect on self-esteem and self-image

Primary Audience Outcome
I want the audience to understand the positive and negative aspects of Photoshop, and how its negative aspects have a negative impact on society

Contributing Audience Outcomes
I would like the audience to:
1. Know the basic functions of Photoshop
2. Understand the
Some of us flip faster through the advertisements to get to the next article, and some of us take extra time analyzing the advertisements. Either way, there are certain advertisements that usually catch our eye and compel us to stop and take a closer look. No matter how beautiful you are and no matter how confident you feel inside your body, these advertisements can make us feel less satisfied with ourselves than we felt prior to opening the magazine.

Thesis/Transition

The decline in people’s self esteem is, in many cases, due to the effects of digital tools such as Photoshop.

I. Photoshop is software that allows people to digitally alter photographs quickly and easily.

A. There are multiple tools involved in Photoshop such as the cropping tool, the rotational tool, the color tool that controls brightening and contrasting photos, the lightening and darkening tool, pixel painting tools, and a sharpening tool (Joe Farace 114-115).

B. This might sound like a lot of information, but Photoshop is designed to make each process very easy for its users. Each tool offers tutorials and is set up for even the most technologically challenged.

Transition

Photoshop is capable of so much more than simply cropping an object or enhancing its color, and advertisement agencies take full advantage of this
It doesn’t stop here though, because stomachs need to be flattened, breasts must be made fuller, stomachs are made perfect, limbs must be made skinnier, and waistlines need to lose inches.
B. It may seem that Photoshop is only used on women, but do not be fooled! Men are photoshopped just as frequently as women are.
a. Their pectorals are enhanced, washboard abdominals are added, and heavy tweaking is also done to their biceps.
C. Dorothy Snarker explains that photoshopping in the fashion industry can mean anything from “fixing small imperfections” to the “wholesale creation of fictitious images”
D. More than 80% of advertisements are touched (Hochwarter 4).
a. This is a shocking statistic, and the degree to which these photographs are touched is even more baffling.
E. The photographs we look at and sigh over are not even real!
a. Photoshop has the ability to morph numerous models into one ideal person.
b. A few different models are often hired, who all are less than perfect looking. These models are each separately photographed for the ad and later the photographer and editors select the body parts they like from each model and reconstruct a whole new model who now has attributes of each photographed model (Paul Frosh