There is a lot one can do with Photoshop, the image editing tool. One can smooth facial lines to appear younger, miraculously lose or put on weight, become lighter or darker-skinned and more. This tool is obviously used very widely in the advertising industry. Sometimes they get it wrong, however, as some of the tweeple noticed with this Kalyan Jewellers ad featuring Amitabh Bachchan:
With those absurdly long fingers, it all just looks unnatural.
The line about the long arm of the law is a popular one in Hindi films. It also recalled to my mind that song from the Bachchan starrer film Kalia – Jahan Teri Yeh Nazar Hai which speaks of ‘Lambe hai mere haath itne’.
It is quite likely that the ad agency used a previous picture of Bachchan; that he didn’t even pose for this particular photo. This is often how things are done with very high profile (read expensive) models.
The original tweet was from someone who clearly didn’t know the identity of the woman in the ad. Several replies informed her about the identity of the woman: she is Pooja Sawant who is well known in the Marathi film industry.
Here the two can be seen in a slightly different pose and different coloured outfits. It seems that Kalyan Jewellers makes these changes to appeal to their customers in different parts of the country. All I could think of was, who really wears that much of jewelry all at the same time!
…Or original versions, depending upon one's point of view. I'm still thinking – what a lot of jewellery! These women better not fall into the water wearing all of this, they’ll just sink!
Maybe the brand would have had to pay more if they needed to bring Bachchan in personally for the shoot? Maybe the cut-paste / bad Photoshop job is just a budgetary issue.
It is a well-known fact that at the ripe old age of 79, Amitabh Bachchan is still one of the most prolific celebrities doing ads in India. He is seen plugging everything from chocolate, to hair oil, to cream to toothpaste, life insurance to vaccines, from entire Indian states to paan masala (though he withdrew from the paan masala endorsement on his 79th birthday).
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