Photo Halalization- A Way to Optimize Photos for Middle East Market

Published by Color Expert Admin September 25, 2025

What’s Acceptable (and Not) in Middle Eastern Advertising

However, if you maintain some criteria for Promotional Materials and Packaging in the Middle East, you can continue marketing activities for your products, such as:

1. Middle East markets require very little skin, apart from European and American markets. There is no problem if the model exposes the maximum parts of their body, but in the Middle East, it is prohibited (though flexible now). You cannot use the image that fully exposes model skin and flesh.

2. A lot of ok parts, such as hands (not arms), face, hair, neck, toes, etc., are allowed to be exposed, which means you can use the images where these particular body parts of the model are kept open without clothes. Actually, the Muslim people believe that these parts are worthy to be opened, and they don’t encourage sexuality.

3. The semi ok parts like arms (but mostly with at least half sleeves, sleeveless arms are sometimes not ok) and some parts of the chest under the necks are also ok, if it does not give any sexual message. The Middle East market is a bit tolerant about the shape of the breasts showing in tight clothes, but it should be covered. But try not to use such an image that excites sexuality. Legs (other than the thigh) are also sometimes ok in moderate Muslim countries.

4. The prohibited body parts are cleavage of women models, a significant amount of breast showing (but sometimes covered breasts are ok), underarms, belly buttons and abdomen, thighs, all other parts that give a sexual message, like: buttocks, and more.

Importance of Censoring Your Photo for the Middle East Market

Middle East is one of the wealthiest markets in the world. Most of the oil-rich countries are in this region. Their economy is also greater than that of most countries. The markets of these countries are also vast. You will get almost all the valuable goods here.

The lifestyle of the people in this area is very expensive. The rich people get together here all year round from other continents. So, the markets of the Middle East are very promising for businessmen.

Any product of any value can be profitable here. But the people of this area have very conservative tastes and social cultures. You cannot enter the markets with your products that have hot & sexy model photos.

That is why you need to change or censor these images. If not, your product may be on shelves like this:

Ways to Halalize Photos for Middle East Market

As it is not possible to run products in the markets of the Middle East having sexy images, you have to modify those images instead of removing them. There are many ways you can manipulate your existing theme and make the photo look less sexy.

1. Full-body Clothing

If you ask how to do it, in answer, we can say that there are lots of ways to dress up the full body using Adobe Photoshop or any other tool. The images that we have attached below are dressed up in Photoshop. In the first image, we have created different layers to cover up and apply black fill color, and what the result is before your eyes.

But, in the second model image, we applied a different technique, and that is we took cloth from another image and added here to the model photo. To complete the job, we use various tools of Photoshop like layers, wrap tool, smudge tool, masking, etc., and get the desired result suitable for the Middle East Markets.

2. Bare-Body Hidden with Obstacles

Bare body, semi-nude, or bikini dress up is strictly prohibited in many countries of the Middle East. But if your product packaging contains such a model image, you cannot enter these markets. Again, it is also costlier and time-consuming to change those images.

Here you can use the existing images by manipulating in Photoshop. You can hide the prohibited body parts behind obstacles, such as the image below. We have used flowers and leaves to hide the body and make the image worthy of being used in Middle Eastern markets.

3. Skin Hidden with a Full Sleeves Top and Long Jeans

Skin is also not allowed in the Middle East. So, it is also subject to change to make your images suitable for the markets here. Look at the images below, which we have added for example. The before image is banned for use, and the after image is suitable for what we have manipulated in Photoshop.

We have taken the full sleeve top and long jeans image and attached it to the body parts. In the same way, you can make your image halalize by adding clothes for the Middle East Markets.

4. Converting Top and Bottom

In the Middle East Markets, you cannot sell products that contain sexy images of models wearing top and short bottom clothes. So, such types of product packets are also worth being manipulated. You can manipulate these images using extra clothes or just by filling in color in Photoshop.

Look at the image below we manipulated. Here we have used the Photoshop Fill Color technique to convert the Top cloth to a t-shirt and thus make the photo halalize.

5. Hiding Arm, Armpit & skin

If your product packagings contain model images showing arms and armpits, these images are also censored in the Middle East and strictly prohibited. So, you cannot publish products having these images.

You have to hide the arms and armpits of these images. By using clothes or other obstacles, you can hide these portions from the model image. In the image below, we have applied extra clothing taken from the same image.

6. Full Body Hiding with Clothes

In some Middle Eastern countries, you have to use full-body covered images. Your products should not have any image that arouses sexuality. All the private parts, including the skin of some other parts, have to be dressed up.

See the image of Nicki Minaj that we have attached here, for example. The second image is manipulated by filling color and adding extra cloth in Photoshop.

7. Enhancing or Adding Cloth

You can halalize sexy model images by enhancing or adding extra clothes in Photoshop. Using various Photoshop tools and techniques and choosing the right cloth to match the existing cloth, hot model images can be covered.

And thus, these images become usable in the Middle East Market. Photo editing and image enhancement are necessary to reduce cost and time consumption.

8. Tweaking Semi OK Photos

There may be some images that do not need too much editing or enhancing. These images of the semi-OK-part category receive small tweaks to be worthy of use in the Middle East Market.

It is not so much tiresome work. Small editing can be a great solution for reducing cost. These images are allowed in some countries, and in the rest of the area, you have to tweak.

9. Close-up Portrait & Cropping by Hiding Objectionable Content

Some images can be suitable for the Middle East Market by just cropping or resizing. Close-up portrait images are ok for here. So, you can make images look like portraits, removing objectionable body parts that arouse sexuality in Photoshop.

It is also an easy task that can save many on-time marketing initiatives. The image below is an example where we have just applied the crop tool in Photoshop.

10. Cloth Manipulation

It can also be a great solution for making halal photos for Arab countries. Cloth manipulation indicates the extension of existing cloth. Look at the following model photo, which is manipulated.

Here we have applied Photoshop techniques to copy cloth layers of the image and hide sensitive skin areas by adjusting those, and thus, created a suitable image for the Middle East.

11. Changing Original Image

Some model photos may not be worthy of manipulation, or you have enough images with which you can replace the existing hot image. In such cases, you do not need to use Photoshop images.

You can solve the problem by just replacing the halal photo from your collection. But if you don’t have such an option, then you must take other measures.

12. Hiding Thighs and Tweaking Small Peeks with Cloth

If you have model images having open thighs and small peeks of the sensitive parts, you have to fix the issues. To halalize such images, you have to cover the thighs with a fill color or add extra cloth.

In the following image, we have covered the thighs with extra clothes and tweaked the small peek of the top cloth. To fix it, we use Photoshop and its tools.

13. Replace with Obstacles

You can halalize model images in many ways, like replacing small peeks with obstacles or replacing the whole model image. The two following images are manipulated in Photoshop.

In one image, we hide a small peek with a toy, and in another image, the whole model image has been replaced with a toy image. By this technique, you can also edit model images for the market of Middle East.

14. How would Monalisa have been Portrayed in Middle East

The famous image, Monalisa has an image censor issue if it is used for Middle East markets. Monalisa’s look and cleavage showing cannot pass the censorship for Arabian countries. That’s why, if you want to use it, you have to manipulate the photo. The image below is edited.

Here we have made her eyes closed and enhanced her top cloth to hide cleavages. Now, it can be used for marketing in some Middle East countries, and to get passed in all Arabian countries, you may retouch Monalisa photo further.

To Conclude

In the above discussion, we have described the most possible ways of image optimization for the Middle East market. It is not possible to have hot model images on product packaging to pass image censorship in Arabian countries (though the condition is changing in some countries like Dubai, UAE).

So, you cannot help but optimize or change your images. You can do it yourself if you have enough mastery of Photoshop.