An American teenager claims that her yearbook photo has been heavily altered in an effort to make her appear more beautiful.

While the removal of small blemishes and skin problems is common in the high school yearbooks, this teen claims her all-girls school has gone beyond that, with face thinning, eyebrow reshaping and the tone of her skin changed.

On Reddit, the student writes:

"I go to an all girls high school and today every senior got a new student ID. We had gotten one in the beginning of the school year and we were all unsure as to why we were given a second. After closer inspection we realized that our photos had be retouched far past smoothing out blemishes. Here is a list of changes made in my photo:

• face smoothing
• skin recoloring
• lip recoloring
• eyebrow smoothing and reshaping
• face thinning

I was outraged! I have a round face that I have grown to love and now I get my photo back with a different face. The new photo no longer even looks like me but rather a prettier twin sister. When we go and have our photos taken we are flat out told that our skin will be retouched to hide blemishes. We are not told, however, that more drastic changes are made.

Going to an all girls school we are constantly reminded about positive body image and accepting ourselves for who we are. Having these changes made to make me appear thinner makes me wonder how must our school practices what they preach.

Here is a comparison of the two photos. The left is untouched and the right is the new photo."

A graphic designer commenting on the original post said he got his first break in image manipulation working for a yearbook company, and that the process of retouching students' photographs is widespread all over the US - and speak to a worry trend of the :

"This was back in the day when everything was scanned from negatives or prints and fixing scans was part & parcel of cleaning - reflections, hairs, spots on photos etc.

The sheer number of people not happy with their own photos and who requested changes when they were offered meant we got into the workflow of fixing the same common things on every pic. Student had a zit? taken out. Jaws flared? smoothed them down. Female student with visible facial hair? we'd take it back to skin tone. Fifteen and sixteen year olds with wrinkles and bags under their eyes? Also removed all as a matter of course.

And when we were editing ten classes worth of photos before lunch, it was part of the process, and we'd homogenize everyone for fewer complaints or unique change requests after proofs.

I didn't like it at the time, and after I finished up a year and a half work on a later job editing magazine photographs which required changes like removing knuckles on women's hands but highlighting them on men, I couldn't go back and haven't. It was great fun work but didn't sit right in my gut.

I'm sorry this still happens. It's sometimes hard to tell who wants what done. Should there be no editing at all? I don't know I ever had a student not ask for a giant quarter-inch wide zit scab removed, but some were fine with obvious long-term acne scars because they considered them part of their personality.

Drawing a line is one thing but the artist prepping those photos likely had a couple of minutes on each image and most of it was edited without much conscious thought.

That process should change. I hope if you do complain to the relevant people you're listened to. A predefined maximum amount of editing should be something the subject gets to define beforehand."

[H/T: Reddit]