When someone tells you an ad has been PhotoShopped, the natural reaction is “Well, yeah, duh.” What you don’t think about is that the manipulation goes far beyond messing with shading and cleaning up blotches. We asked our readers to enlighten us about the interesting, hands-on tricks ad makers still use. Many supplements advertise rapid weight loss, muscle gain, or anti-aging effects. Often, the claims are unsupported by scientific evidence, yet the ad uses scientific-sounding language or fake “clinical studies” to appear credible.
Before-and-after images are heavily edited, lighting is manipulated, and sometimes makeup is applied to exaggerate results. Ads may emphasize features while minimizing limitations, like battery life, durability, or actual performance. Rendered images make devices look sleeker than they are in hand. Free apps may be advertised as fully functional, but require costly in-app purchases to access essential features.
