I remember back in 2008 when Iran launched three (what was perceived to be 4) long range missiles to demonstrate their growing military power.  Soon after, I was watching The Daily Show and found out that only 3 missiles had been launched, and that by using Photoshop editing, the Iranians had essentially pasted another missile into the picture.  Of course I was somewhat familiar with this phenomenon, with people posting misleading images and videos on Youtube, Reddit, and a host of other hotbeds for memes; but for a world power such as Iran to partake in it (and do a poor job nonetheless; it was found out nearly overnight that the image was fake) was pretty shocking.

Upon reading Morris’ article on the history of editing photos, I became aware that the same tactics Iran used to ‘fool’ us today were being used all the way back in the Crimean War (1853), considered the first war to ever have extensive journalistic and photographic coverage.  Back then there was no Photoshop or even MS Paint to change the pictures, but that didn’t stop journalists and their crews in editing the landscape themselves, throwing cannonballs onto the war-torn roads to add a level of destruction to their images.  There’s still not positive evidence the cannonballs were placed there on purpose, but when I first saw the picture, I almost immediately thought something looked suspicious about them.  However, people back then must have been horrified by the shots, probably having no inkling that they might be fabricated.

And that’s the powerful thing about the manipulation of photos; in the moment we could see them as real, but years from now others could look back and realize that many were just frauds, like we have with the Crimean War photos.  One of the most recent examples of this happened during the killing of Osama Bin Laden, and the famous Situation Room photo.  While watching The Colbert Report, Stephen reported that a Jewish newspaper had edited out the 2 females in the room (Audrey Tomason, and most notably Hillary Clinton) in their front page article on the story.
Here we see the picture as it was taken, and below is how the newspaper Di Tzeitung showed it,
Now to us, we know the image is clearly fake, but to all the people who read this newspaper, they now have a different view of what went on during the operation. And while it might not be conspiracy theory material, it tells a lot about what people will do to have their thoughts and views imposed on others. Not that every photo we see in a newspaper, magazine, or on the Internet is faked, but I’d take each one with a grain of salt, knowing it might not be the whole truth.