Photo Manipulation
We have all heard of "air brushing" photographs. This process has been used for decades in the magazine industry. Whether it was magazines like Playboy that wanted perfect skin or magazines that used it for the exact opposite reason (to hide a nipple or other indecent object from a photo).
Some photographers used split image techniques in the darkroom that allowed them to merge two images together and make something new. Jerry Uelsmann (see picture to the left) is a photographer that excels at this type of image. He takes two images and seemlessly combines them to form a new entirely unique image.
However, the techniques discussed above are performed on the negative or print using mechanical or art techniques. Today there are new tools that allow us to alter the image in ways we never could do before. Or at least amateurs were unable to do.
Now with programs like Paint Shop Pro, Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Photo Elements, and many many others photo manipulation has entered a new century.
It is possible to fix old photographs, remove objects from pictures that are not pleasing, replace the background of a picture to make it look like it was shot in another location. All of these things are easily (or semi-easily) performed using programs like Abobe Photoshop.
Below are some examples (before and after) of pictures that I took with an explanation of what was done (though it is usually obvious).
For this first example I am using a picture that may be familiar. This picture is on the opening page of this web site. However, there is something different about this version of the picutre.
This is the original picture and there are two objects that I decided were a disctraction in the picture. These two items were removed using photo editing software. As can be seen in the second version of this picture both the headphone cord and backpack have been removed from the image. On a close inspection it is possible to see some of the artifacts 
created by the editing. With practive these sutlties can be removed to make it almost impossible to see evidence on the newly created image.
So the new image looks much more professional. Even though this was just a candid shot and not a professional studio portrait the overal look of the second image is much more appealing than the original image above. This change was accomplished using a cloning process. The software is given an area of the picture to start from and copies that pattern to a new location. For this picture different areas of the orange shirt were copied over the locations where the headphone cord or backpack was. When using this method there are artifacts that look out of place. This is usually changes in contrast, color, or brighness. In those cases a change to color levels is made. When a transition shows edges a bluring tool can be used to make the two contrasting areas appear to be smoothed together. Both techniques were used for this process. (Click on each image to see a full size picture).
In this next example the same part of an image is compeletly removed. What if you take a picture of a statue and there was something in the picture that was not pleasing. It is now possible to completely remove that from the picture. Above the object was removed by cloning another part of the picture. Sometimes it is even easier to just remove the object all together. When backgrounds are extremely dark (or white) then it may be possible to just delete the image without cloning. For this example the construction section of the picture was cut out using a "laso" tool and deleted from the image. Since the background of the scene was at night and nearly dark a fill using black was performed on all of the background to assure that there were no inconsistencies in the background image.
This of course would be harder to accomplish for a sunny day, but the method can still be used to remove the offensive article and then cloning could be used to fill in the missing area (example in the future).
As with the previous example there are times when it is impossible to take the picture you really want. It may be construction that has to be in the picture or maybe an open door that causes the viewers 
eye to be distracted from the true subject of the picture. Using very similar techniques to the last example the open door in this picture was closed. To close the door a cloning tool was used to pain in the door to make it appear closed. Since the people around the door were slightly out of focus it was possible to clone right up to them without appearing to distort the picture.
With the common use of photoshop tools on todays digital be careful believing everything you see. Sometimes the image in the magazine, newspaper, or on the television has been altered from its original state.