Intrigued by the Photoshop culture of the United States, "human interest reporter" Esther Honig had the idea to examine how standards of beauty vary from country to country, so she contacted 40 expert and amateur graphic designers in 25 countries around the world and sent them a photo of herself with the following instructions: "make me beautiful."
Honig named the series "Before and After" and posted a selection of the images made with "freelancing programs like Fiverr" to her website. From altered eye shapes and skin color, to makeup and hair extensions, it's interesting to see how drastically different each of the photos are. Of the project Honig writes "Photoshop allows us to achieve our unobtainable standards of beauty, but when we compare those standards on a global scale, achieving the ideal remains all the more illusive." Check out a GIF of the transformations above (created by Designboom), and head to Honig's website to see the full-sized images.
Before & After from Argentina
Before & After from the Philippines
Before & After from Morocco
Before & After from Kenya
Before & After from the United States
