I wasn’t a fan of the latest billboard unveiled by the Conservatives. For starters I wrote there are definately better pictures of David Cameron, as this one looks a little too neat – especially hair wise – and is too “soft focus”. One person I asked thought it was “airbrushed”, and this person was not alone in making this observation it seems. The newspapers also had similar thoughts, and Cameron said he had received a ‘ribbing’ from friends about the image. Speaking in the Commons Labour’s deputy leader, Harriet Harman, attempted to score cheap political points with the line that “no amount of airbrushing will conceal the truth behind the Tory tax muddle. It might be a new airbrushed face – but it is still the same old Tories.” Labour made a website for spoof posters, and it even cropped up at PMQ’s (though this somewhat backfired on “airbrushed out” Brown). All in all however it wasn’t a huge success. “If I were David Cameron, the first thing I would do is sack my advertising agency,” wrote Mary Portas in The Telegraph.

As it happens I do not think the image was deliberately airbrushed, though the one used by Labour for their mock ups was. Guido compares the images. Instead I expect that the original image became “pixelated” when enlarged to billboard size, and in order to correct this the creative team would run a rendering process on their image editor, which – when coupled with an image taken with a soft focus lens – would look just like the poster does.

It does show however that care has to be taken on billboards.

Posted in Blog, Conservatives