Photo manipulation is not a new thing. Since the 19th century, in fact, photographers and

photography production specialists

of various flavors have been using the photographic technologies available to them to adjust

and tweak, and in some cases dramatically change the resultant image in an attempt to correct

for imperfections, achieve some more optimal version of reality, or generally mess with the viewer's

perception of reality.

Joseph Stalin is a famously enthusiastic practitioner of photo manipulation, for the purposes of

skewing the perception of reality in the viewers of said photos. he had his photo experts remove folks who had fallen

out of his favor, for one reason or another, from photos, including historic photos. So when

the new edited photo came to replace the previous one, he could deny that that person was ever

in it in the first place. If a photograph could be said to capture reality, then he, Stalin,

could change history and indeed reality by using these techniques.

Stalin wasn't the only historic figure to use photographic technologies for their own

self-serving purposes, though. The photographic portrait of Abraham Lincoln, taken by Matthew Brody, and later used as

the basis for the image of Lincoln that would become emblazoned across the US $5 bill, was

originally a seated photo, but Lincoln's face was, in post-processing, placed atop former

vice president John C. Calhoun's body, which the photographer

had available from another shoot with Calhoun, and which featured Calhoun's body standing

next to a writing table, an American flag, and a globe. It was a very presidential-looking

setup, and Calhoun's body was very dapperly dressed, so it was decided that Lincoln's

head would look better in that image on that well-dressed and standing body for posterity's sake.

Now, traditional photographic methods gave would-be propagandists and artists and well-meaning

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