Like it or not, much of the conversation around image quality these days revolves around sensor size. When Sony announced the a7R IV, it boasted image quality that “rivaled medium format.” When people defend Micro Four Thirds, they show off their ultra-portable system and claim the images are “indistinguishable from full-frame.”
Photoshop and other image manipulation software has become an interesting tool in the quest to define 'beauty.' Often used to sculpt and create false beauty, it's also been used by people like Esther Honig to illustrate how our definitions of beauty change based on culture.
Another project by animator Marius Vibe that is currently making the rounds seeks to answer a different question: If you combined portraits of eight of the most beautiful women in the world (at least according to Maxim) into a single composite, would that composite be even more beautiful than any of the individual parts?
They say beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and if journalist Esther Honig has proven anything with her fascinating Photoshop project Before & After, it's that whoever 'they' are (it turns out, Margaret Wolfe Hungerford) is right.