Gisele Bundchen's Baby Bump Vanishes From London Fog Ads

July 31, 2009 — -- She's showing in real life, but in her ad campaigns Gisele Bündchen's baby bump is nowhere to be found.

The supermodel and wife of football star Tom Brady bares her belly and just about everything else in a new set of ads for trench-coat company London Fog. Considering she's carrying a child, she looks suspiciously slim.

A London Fog spokeswoman told Women's Wear Daily that the company airbrushed Bündchen's baby bump out of the ads to "respect her privacy." Behind-the-scenes video of the photo shoot reveals Bündchen wore underwear that was also digitally removed from the campaign.

It's just the latest instance of over-the-top airbrushing. Photographers, magazines, models and even celebrities have relied on digital trickery for years, but lately, it seems the retoucher's Photoshop tool is being wielded less like a brush and more like a knife, slimming and sculpting stars into shapes that bear fleeting resemblance to their actual bodies.

"The more and more we use this editing, the higher and higher the bar goes. They're creating things that are physically impossible," said Hany Farid, a Dartmouth College professor of computer science who specializes in digital forensics and photo manipulation. "We're seeing really radical digital plastic surgery. It's moving towards the Barbie doll model of what a woman should look like -- big breasts, tiny waist, ridiculously long legs, elongated neck."

Below, Farid dissects some of the latest acts of what he sees as out-of-control airbrushing.