Despite the almost-instinctive perception that photographs should represent untouched reality, photography has never been sacrosanct: Minor and major alterations have been present since its earliest days.

Stalin is most (in)famous for ordering the removal of out-of-favor comrades from official photographic group power-portraits. But government retouching is as current as ever: The U.S. Defense Department distributed a digitally altered photo of the U.S. military’s first female four-star general as recently as Nov. 21, 2008. (The Associated Press immediately suspended its use when the alteration became known.)

We have become so accustomed to extreme celebrity retouching that even a heavily altered image scarcely makes news these days. At the same time, we want to emulate celebrities; photo retouching is a lot less expensive and certainly less invasive than cosmetic surgery, so why not indulge? Because of the widespread awareness of photo manipulation in the press, personal photo manipulation seems not only acceptable but desirable and necessary. Not simply satisfied with enhancing our looks, however, we are routinely altering reality, à la Stalin, by removing ex-spouses, adding family members unable to attend a wedding, “reuniting” with dead loved ones, fabricating celebrity contacts and perpetuating all manner of photographic falsehood and fantasy—take your pick.

A cottage industry of Photoshop-savvy specialists has sprung up to satisfy those who are unable or too time-pressed to master the necessary skills. While it has never been easier for amateurs to do their own retouching, they may not be as proficient as the pros. Some photographers and designers, sensing the opportunity, have gone beyond doing favors for family and friends and have established retouching businesses in addition to their regular practices. Retouch Pro.com, a web community for retouching specialists, has sprung up for those who not only prettify but create alternate realities.

THE APPEAL OF DECEPTION
And plenty of people want to learn from the pros. Designer William Kelly teaches an adult education class in Montclair, N.J. “The number one reason people take the class,” he says, “is to retouch photos of themselves to post on dating sites.” Kelly has heard some pretty wild stories. “One woman actually said she was taking the class to combine pictures of her husband and his girlfriend to make it appear that they were in a compromising position, in order to show it to her children!”

Art director Andrea Gallo retouched a photo for a friend who was posting it to a dating site. “She’s a lovely girl who gave me a pretty photo to work from, but the tweaks that she wanted bordered on lunacy. It was a small image—2 by 3 inches at 100 dpi— and she wanted circles under her eyes retouched, lines taken out of her neck, a necklace readjusted, her posture corrected—I padded her shoulders a bit—and her lips enlarged, but not too much. So I adjusted the contrast level and softened the picture overall. It was barely touched, but she felt better knowing it was done by a designer. Naturally, she’d be apoplectic if I released her picture.”

Others have purer motives. Freelance designer Michele Fedele wanted to create a composite image that should have been taken at her nephew’s wedding but wasn’t: a photo of Fedele’s mother with the groom and his brother (her grandsons). Fedel asked photographer Kenn Nadel to help. He used a shot with another person between the brothers and inserted her mother, who had since passed away. “And it looks like it actually happened that way,” says Fedele, who is happy with the altered “memory.”

The art director of Successful Meetings magazine, Don Salkaln, was asked to photograph his brother-in-law’s destination wedding in Jamaica. He set up a casual shot on the beach the first morning. One of the mothers had not yet arrived, so he had to digitally insert her, next to her daughter on a lifeguard chair. “With the help of this magical software tool and pre-planning," says the satisfied Salkaln, “the newlyweds and their family will cherish this photo forever.”

You can take the photo and be in it, too. Freelance creative director Ashley Pound describes adding herself to a group shot: “I was at a holiday party. I am the redhead in the red dress on the far left, but I wasn’t in the original shot. I was taking the picture with one of those cheap party-box cameras—hence the grain. I cut myself out of another shot at the same party and inserted myself into this shot alongside my boyfriend Peter. Originally he was at the end of the line and had his hand at his side. I borrowed a hand from [another guest] and distorted it to appear as if it was wrapped around my waist.”

Custom publishing photo editor Susan Mettler recounts the time that she and her husband traveled to a cousin’s wedding in Vermont: “We had our crazy, wild 2-year-old twins with us. It had been raining for days, we’d been trying to entertain our kids in a strange place, and we were tired and cranky. The wedding photographer took a family portrait of us while we were shivering in our summer clothes in the damp Vermont evening air. Months later an envelope arrived with pictures of us from the wedding. We looked young, no wrinkles, no blemishes, and best of all our teeth were gleaming white. The wedding photographer had taken it upon himself to make us as beautiful as he could.”

“I made an album for my parents’ 50th wedding anniversary,” says Hannah Leider, a freelance designer and production artist. “They had taken a vacation in Florida and shot photos of each other, but none together. So I retouched a couple of the photos to include both of them. I’m not a Photoshop pro, but I know the basics ... my parents didn’t even realize what I had done.”

New York Daily News art director Ann McGettigan says she had “the ultimate request” from her 10-year-old niece. “Her teacher would bring in photos of himself with actress Amanda Bynes. My niece wanted me to introduce her to celebrities and have her photo in the newspaper like her teacher. I told her I couldn’t do that, but I could Photoshop her with her favorite celebs. We could print it on newsprint, place it in the newspaper, and she could bring it into her class. Well, it worked. Her teacher didn’t let on about it either ... wink, wink.”

Although potent technology gives people the ability to alter their personal histories, the old unretouched photos still exert a powerful pull. Photographer Michelle Vitiello found a suitcase of family photos when her grandfather passed away two years ago. “In my own exploration and interest in nostalgia and returning to a past time, I superimposed images of myself into several scenes.” She feels the results are “humorous and honest—a visit into a past that I can never really be a part of. The process was interesting technically, to have myself photographed while role-playing to fit within an old image, standing near my father or occupying the same room or table with my grandparents.”

And in a twist of history, Stalin’s legacy has come full circle. In the Russian Jewish community of Queens, N.Y., families wishing to “reblend” their photographic histories seek out Yosef Boruhov. His Amity Studio specializes in creating family portraits that incorporate images of deceased or absent relatives.

JUDGE NOT, LEST …
Who is to say what is real and what is manipulated reality? Whether or not a single pixel has been altered, photographs have implicit biases: the angle of the camera, the crop, the lighting. All of these and more can convey very different shades of meaning. Though we know enough to cast a wary eye on every image, we may or may not choose to believe what we see.

[TOP:] Designer Michele Fedele enlisted the aid of photographer Kenn Nadel to recreate a photo that should have been taken at a wedding but wasn’t.