Photoshopping

We live in a word where Photoshop has become a verb and we are aware that virtually every image we see in print has been touched up in one way or another. And while Photoshopping is nothing new, it is interesting to trace it back through it roots of retouching and “editing” photos to see how far back the practice actually extends. Over at the blog A Photo Editor ( blog by a Photo Editor at a “National Magazine”) the writer comments on the New York Time’s photo retouching policy (they don’t allow it) and mistakenly calls them out on a photo.

More interesting still is a site he links to by Hany Farid, a professor at Dartmouth who has researched photo retouching and has posted a bunch of retouched photo history with the retouched photos and the originals linked. Pretty interesting stuff and worth a quick check.

Photoshopping has reached a mainstream level that even Penny Arcade, a video game blog, sells tshirts mocking the popularity of Guitar Hero and Photoshop with “Photoshop Hero.” Okay, maybe that is a sign of video games hitting the mainstream… Or, there is always the possibility that the folks playing around with Photoshop are also playing Guitar Hero in which case there is no mainstreaming of a sub-culture… Anyway, figure it out for yourself, I am off to install CS3.