All the Editing That Went Into This Ad

Ever think about what goes into the making of those flawless ads and commercials you see every day? The process is much more painstaking than you may think. Senior Colorist at Colormeup, Andreas Brueckl, broke down his editing process for a L'Oreal Garnier commercial, and it just might shock you. There is clearly much more depth and precision than meets the naked eye in these productions, all carefully crafted behind the scenes.

We're all familiar with the controversy about over-photoshopped and over-edited models and celebrities in digital media (how could we forget this Target "thigh gap" photoshop fail), but this type of editing, or should I say color-correcting, is a little different. As you watch the video, you can see all of the minuscule details prompted by color-correcting, including contrasting shadows and added brightening and lightening effects all meant to make this ad vibrant and shiny but still natural. According to Brueckl, the condensed 3 minute video accounts for 30 minutes of real time editing. Whoa. It's pretty crazy to witness how much work goes into what is meant to be a "natural" looking commercial, especially one for a beauty product. These retouching and skin-grading techniques, however, go into ALL commercials, not just beauty specific ones. Feeling deceived? I don't blame you.

Check out the video below — it's pretty cool to watch, even if you're wary about retouching in ads.