Telling the Whole Truth and Nothing But the Truth

Photo manipulation has existed long before 1988 when Adobe Photoshop was created. Instead of computers, alterations were achieved using scalpels and ink guns. Cut-outs could be used to place two or more people in one photo in a process called photomontage, a method that can be used to conjure up events that never actually occurred. Recently, the Library of Congress exposed a picture of Ulysses S. Grant on horseback in Virginia during the American Civil War as a fake. It was actually the compilation three separate images: Grant’s face, Major General Alexander McDowell’s body and his horse, and a picture of a camp in City Point as the background. Nevertheless, this pictorial evidence of his gallantry definitely did not hurt Grant's presidential campaign in later years. On the other hand, blocking and effacement could erase two or more people in one photo, techniques that Joseph Stalin was fond of using during his regime in his endeavour to erase all traces of his enemies from the records. For example, a photo of Stalin taking a peaceful stroll along a river with the head of the Soviet secret police, Nikolai Yezhov, was later manipulated. When Yezhov fell out of favour with Stalin during the late 1930s, his smiling face and body was blended into the background.