France is considering a law to require advertisers to disclose when images have been doctored, reports Time magazine:

The drive against airbrushed photos is being headed by conservative parliamentarian Valérie Boyer, who says the widespread use of digital technology to alter images is feeding the public a steady visual diet of falsified people, places and products. This artificial reality leads people to expect perfection from themselves and the world in an impossible way, she says. “When writers take a news item or real event and considerably embellish it, they are required to alert readers by calling the work fiction, a novel or a story based on dramatized facts. Why should it be any different for photographs?” Boyer asks. “Rules on food-labeling let consumers know the origins of the contents and the presence of things like additives and preservatives. What’s wrong with … informing them when photographs have also been modified from their original form?”

Advertisers would argue that doing so undermines the allure of perfectly photographed people and places in marketing campaigns, which, in many cases, is what sells. A svelte model with perfect skin, for example, is likely to make you want to eat high-fiber cereal more than a model with visible imperfections. Perhaps, says Boyer, but she believes that passing enhanced imagery off as the real thing is misleading. Her proposed legislation would require doctored photos meant for public distribution to carry the warning “Photograph retouched to modify the physical appearance of a person.” Anyone violating the rule could be fined about $55,000. Since she presented her draft to parliamentary committees in September, Boyer has been joined by more than 50 other legislators who want to see it introduced as formal legislation and voted on in the coming months.

This story actually broke before the whole Ralph Lauren debacle, but it becomes an even more interesting question in light of those recent events. Where do you fall in this debate over photo retouching? Are ads understood not to reflect reality, or are we worse off with the white lie?