Tim Bray is reading Photoshop Elements for Digital Photographers by Scott Kelby, which I’ve been looking at as well, and observes that “integrity is history. The image is no longer the capture of a instant’s light and colour, it’s, well… whatever you and Photoshop make of it.”
The ‘art’ of photo retouching is a lot older than PhotoShop, it’s just finally being brought to the hands of the rest of us.
I recall a story from many years ago about a young man who went to traffic court, fighting a ticket he got for running a stop sign.
“There is no stop sign at that intersection,” he told the judge, and showed a picture to prove his point. The judge was about to let him off when he happened to look at the back of the photo and saw that it was property of the local newspaper.
“You work at the paper? Which department?”
“Photo retouching,” the man answered, and had to pay his fine in full.
I wonder how long it’ll be until judges and juries are overly suspicious of any photo, audio or video recording brought into court – if they’re not already.