The secret of slimline Kate
By Hugh Davies, The Daily Telegraph

Pictures of Kate Winslet digitally altered to give her supermodel proportions have prompted fresh debate about the "tidying up" of photographs of celebrities.

On her insistence, Winslet is on GQ magazine's front cover in a revealing black basque, showing skinny legs, a tiny waist and razor-sharp cheekbones thanks to computer enhancement. Inside the magazine, the 27-year-old actress poses topless in high heels and tights, looking even thinner with an impossibly flat tummy.

Experts said virtually all glossy pictures of stars these days, except those snapped by paparazzi, were digitally altered. But the Winslet shots sit a trifle incongruously with the accompanying interview, in which she berates women for equating sex appeal with being thin.

Winslet, who lives with the director Sam Mendes, said: "What is sexy? All I know from the men I've ever spoken to is that they like girls to have an arse on them, so why is it that women think in order to be adored they have to be thin? I just don't understand that way of thinking. I'm certainly not a sex symbol who doesn't eat."

Winslet, publicising her new film, The Life of David Gale, made by Sir Alan Parker and starring Kevin Spacey, added: "I'm completely physically comfortable with who I am and I have no particular issues any more, and I don't feel I have to run around waving my flag about the female body any more."

GQ staff, with airbrush expertise, carefully slimmed down Winslet's legs, straightened up the line of her stomach to washboard flatness and gave her a pert bottom.

Why the usually cheeky Winslet should want this is curious. She has never made a secret of being called "Blubber" at school where she was "a fat kid".

Dylan Jones, editor of GQ, said: "I don't think we're hoodwinking the public. Way back in the 1940s Hollywood was doing its utmost to make its glamour girls look as sexy as possible. With digital, we can make this art more seamless.

"These days there are two types of magazine pictures - paparazzi shots, or heavily-styled glossy pictures which have everything done to them to make someone as beautiful and sexy as possible.

"This is common practice everywhere, from films to videos. Three years ago we altered a part of the clothing [underwear] worn by Kylie Minogue, with her permission. Everything is done with the star's approval.

"I interviewed Kate for the piece. She was, of course, fully clothed, but it was obvious that she had changed a lot. I could tell she had fabulous legs and a great body.

"Almost no picture that appears in GQ, or any other magazine or newspaper, has not been altered in some way. Agents and publicists have much greater control over the image rights to their clients, so they want to make sure they are seen in the best possible light."

Bob Martin, production director of the retouching department of Metro Imaging in Soho, central London, said: "I would say 95 per cent of pictures have been altered. Those we work on range from minimum clean-ups to major surgery."

He works with leading celebrity photographers including David Bailey and Mario Testino, whose pictures of Elizabeth Hurley and Sir Elton John were subjected to the process for the cover of Vogue last month.

Hurley, in silk bra and matching knickers, was shown with elegant long legs poised over a piano as the singer, looking half his age, grinned back in a red rhinestone suit.

Mr Martin said: "We work to a photographer's brief. But, in fact, the advances in technology over the last 10 years mean that you can create women from nothing.

"There are no limits, from slender legs to everything else, and it does no major harm. I can't think people are being conned."