The beginning of the school year means children will be the subject of class photos, and as every parent knows children, while photogenic, are not always spotlessly clean.
That's why many companies that provide school photos offer to retouch the images to remove blemishes.
But one Repentigny mother was outraged to discover her daughter could have her "chest" retouched.
Karine Richard said as the mother of children in elementary school she could not believe what she was reading.
"At first sight it was something really shocking for me. I was surprised," she said.
Richard said the idea that children need to have their images altered is offensive.
"If you have pimples or something, this is what you are. Tomorrow you're going to wake up and you're still going to have these pimples," said Richard.
She said retouching school photos sends the wrong message to children.
But the company providing photos for Richard's children's school, SPEQ, said they do not alter the way children look.
"We said chest, yes the word is there, but under the clothes section," said Nestor Sanchez.
"We're talking about a stain on the clothes on the sweater or something like that. When we talk about the nose we aren't saying we want to redo their nose."
SPEQ has since altered its form to make it clear what is being offered, and to avoid future confusion.
"We're talking about food stains because that's exactly when we said the mouth people were like, 'they want to enlarge the lips.' That was not the case. It's really a food stain... so we specified," said Sanchez.
SPEQ said only one or two percent of schoolchild customers opt for retouching.
Meanwhile Richard wants the option removed altogether to let kids know they're perfect just the way they are.
