Wednesday I made a trip to the grocery store, like any other day, but was appalled when I picked up the latest box of Raisin Bran. The Raisin Bran on the cover looks nothing like the cereal does in real life. How dare they enlarge those flakes to show texture? I want to see the real thing. That milk? Not real; there is no way that the photographer took the photo right as the milk splashed flawlessly over the bowl. This is an outrage. Altering the cereal to make it look better, they have some nerve. Now what am I supposed to believe? I am going to be so confused when I open the box and see a less perfect version of cereal inside. But then again, if I saw the real thing, I probably wouldn’t buy it anyway.

This sounds silly. 

Target was recently involved in a Photoshop scandal in which what seemed to be an attempt to create a thigh gap on a swimsuit model went wrong. In the poorly edited photo, a square of the model’s lady parts was obviously missing. This is just one of many Photoshop scandals that have recently garnered attention.

While reading Tina Fey’s book, Bossy Pants, I got to thinking about the issue. 

I used to think all Photoshop was bad and that it was ridiculous that people didn’t just love themselves for who they truly are. But after reading an excerpt from Tina Fey’s book, I no longer hate Photoshop. I don’t think it’s acceptable to slim someone down by 20 pounds, but making someone look the best they can possibly look without changing them too much is okay.

Take it from Tina Fey.

“Feminists do the best Photoshop because they leave the meat on your bones. They don’t change your size or your skin color. They leave in your disgusting knuckles, but they may take out some armpit stubble. Not because they’re denying its existence, but because they understand that it’s okay to make a photo look as if you were caught on your best day in the best light.”

Sometimes pictures are altered just to look better, not to make society believe that the person on the cover of a magazine is the ideal perfect person. If our younger generations are taught that those pictures have been altered, there is no harm done. All that needs to be said is, “She just wanted to look nice for the cover of the magazine because millions of people would see it, and though she is comfortable with herself, she wanted to look the best that she possibly could.”

Nobody is up in arms about Instagram filters or the new filters on Snapchat. No one thinks the 40-year-old woman in the Christmas picture turned to the side with her hand on her hip, boobs out and stomach in is promoting a poor beauty image. If you are really upset about Photoshop, you should also be upset about make-up, Spanx and hair tools as well. Everybody wants to look their best in pictures, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t comfortable with themselves when they are watching daytime television while wearing sweatpants and no make-up. 

I’m not saying altering the way people look is right, but people on the covers of magazines shouldn’t be criticized because they chose to smooth out the bags under their eyes or flatten their stomach a bit. Think about how you choose your Facebook profile picture: Don’t you choose the photo that you look best in, regardless of whether it has edits or doesn’t exactly look like you?