Here’s a Look at How Much Post-Processing Goes Into a L’Oréal Beauty Commercial

People can get really upset when you start using the P word. Magazine covers, professional portraits and even Instagram posts have been accused of using Photoshop. But nobody bats an eye when a beauty commercial comes on TV.

Photos are manipulated, video, unless there’s CGI involved, is immune from such falsehoods right? Not really. As the time-lapse screen video above by Color Me Up! senior colorist Andreas Brueckl shows, those commercials get quite a bit of help in the software department as well.

The video condenses 30 minutes of Baselight color grading work done for a L’Oréal Garnier commercial down to just 3 minutes, and shows just how much work Brueckl does using some familiar looking tools.

And that’s not even the full story. As he explains in the video description:

To be honest, I don’t show too much of the beauty retouching and skin grading. The model has a very nice skin and with the help of Garnier it was not much work for me.

From a photography perspective, it’s fascinating to see how this is both very different and very similar to what one might do to a still photograph.