If you only viewed celebrities on magazines and CD covers, you might begin to think that they all live in a land where upper arm skin never jiggles, second chins never appear when they smile broadly, and cellulite is against the law. But celebrities -- even the stunningly gorgeous ones -- are real people, too.

Kelly Clarkson knows a bit about photo retouching. On her blog, Clarkson said "We decided the cover of the album ... it's very colorful and they have definitely photo-shopped the crap out of me, but i don't care. Whoever she is, she looks great!"

Even though she seems to embrace retouching with open arms, Clarkson is honest about it. She attended a self-esteem workshop sponsored by Dove and she told the pre-teens "just to let you know everyone in the magazines is Photoshopped! We're all human!"

Clarkson admits that it's painful for her when she hears her own body picked apart in the media. In fact, she's learned to avoid reading magazines like that altogether. "It's horrible – they'll show celebrities with cellulite and it's like, 'Of course celebrities have cellulite! We're not fem-bots!'"

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For a woman, the prospect of being photographed in your undies for the world to see elicits only one feeling: overwhelming, all-encompassing dread. Sure, most of us have good reason to be afraid -- extra flab, an unflattering stomach paunch and a lumpy bottom dimpled with cellulite is, in our minds, enough to scare the bejesus out of the general population.

But even stick-thin celebs like Victoria Beckham get anxious about having their near-naked bodies captured on film, apparently. According to recent reports, the fashionista ran nine miles a day for six months in order to look her absolute best for her recent Giorgio Armani Lingerie shoot. A source close to the star says, "Like any woman, she's conscious of her body, so she worked really hard to get into optimum shape."

Even so, her hard work wasn't enough to keep the images from being photoshopped. Which leaves me wondering -- if you have to re-rouch images of a teeny, tiny woman like that, what does that say for the rest of us?

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Note to magazine editors, professional photographers, and anyone else who dabbles in Photoshop ... cut it out. Jessica Alba just had her little girl, Honor, last June and she's back to pre-baby shape already. She looks gorgeous (says Maggie with a jealous sneer). But, apparently, someone from the Campari campaign didn't think she was quite gorgeous enough.

Photos have surfaced showing a shot from the photo shoot before retouching and a photo after retouching. Granted, in my opinion, they're two different photos (her head tilt is different and would they really retouch the whole background?), even so, it's obvious there's been some retouching going on.

I just think it's a shame to take an incredibly fit and gorgeous woman like Jessica Alba and find room for improvement. It's no wonder that I -- far from Jessica Alba-ish -- look at my mirror in the morning and wonder when my rear end is going to be declared the 51st state.

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The Dove Campaign For Real Beauty has been based upon the idea that, while our bodies might have flaws (real or perceived), we're all beautiful. It's a good message, and they're looking to boost the self-esteem of females of all ages, starting with young girls. I'm all for it -- it's important that women realize that they don't need to be able to trade clothes with their favorite actress or be stalked by paparazzi in order to be beautiful.

However, some discussion has recently surfaced saying that the women in the Real Beauty ads were retouched. Premiere retoucher, Pascal Dangin, told The New Yorker that there was a great deal of retouching done on those ads, "But it was great to do, a challenge, to keep everyone's skin and faces showing the mileage but not looking unattractive."

What do you think about this development? I can't say I'm surprised -- I appreciate the fact that Dove still used women of different shapes and sizes. I mean, these are regular women being photographed and filmed in their undies! I can't say I would object to a little digital help were I in their position. But, others feel that it destroys the message -- they're not showing "real" beauty if there's retouching. What do you think?

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