# If You Had Photoshop 100 Years Ago... **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [April 10, 2010, 2:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-had-photoshop-100-years-ago/535609 "2010-04-10T02:46:47Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![DMark](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e68b1a/32.png) [@DMark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DMark)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2010, 2:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-had-photoshop-100-years-ago/535609/1 "2010-04-10T02:46:47Z")
Assuming you were the only person on earth that had a computer and Photoshop, what kind of damage/havoc could you have created? Just wondering, as back then I believe most people believed all photos were pretty much “real”. The old adage of “a picture is worth a 1000 words” seemed to be the norm back then. Hell, even today there are people who still believe the photos on the [cover](http://static.howstuffworks.com/gif/tabloid-5.jpg) of supermarket tabloids, although most sane people might raise an eyebrow and think there might be some doctoring of said photos. My guess is you could have taken a picture of your (guilty) client and Photoshoped it into a photo of people at a ball game when the crime was committed and passed it off in court? Or maybe some candid shot of sexual mischief with a photo of a local or national politician? ---
**Author:** ![QuercusMax](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/8baadc/32.png) [@QuercusMax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/QuercusMax)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2010, 2:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-had-photoshop-100-years-ago/535609/2 "2010-04-10T02:54:47Z")
Is 70-80 years ago close enought? > **[Homepage - Freedom Forum](https://www.freedomforum.org/)** > > The Freedom Forum’s mission is to foster First Amendment freedoms for all. Basically, from the 30s to the 50s, Stalinist Russia doctored photos (often quite badly) to cover up their purges. I have a feeling that sufficiently-clueful people (e.g. those who understand the process of making a photographic print, in other words any photographer back then) would understand that it was possible to doctor photographs. Now, making fake _negatives_ would have been rather difficult. ---
**Author:** ![handsomeharry](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e9c0ed/32.png) [@handsomeharry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/handsomeharry)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2010, 3:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-had-photoshop-100-years-ago/535609/3 "2010-04-10T03:02:21Z")
About 1905, George Milius (???) did a video trick photography thing, so it would probably be before 1905 that somebody could be really fooled, methinks. Best wishes, hh ---
**Author:** ![Larry\_Mudd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/f14d63/32.png) [@Larry\_Mudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Larry_Mudd)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2010, 3:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-had-photoshop-100-years-ago/535609/4 "2010-04-10T03:11:35Z")
[Old school retouching](http://forums.joerogan.net/showpost.php?p=3049801&postcount=1). ---
**Author:** ![Darryl\_Lict](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/7cd45c/32.png) [@Darryl\_Lict](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darryl_Lict)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2010, 7:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-had-photoshop-100-years-ago/535609/5 "2010-04-10T19:04:18Z")
I remember reading about this scam by 10 and 16 year old cousins 1n 1917 which kind of demonstrated how gullible the general public was back then. The [Cottingley fairies](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cottingley_fairies)were a series of photos superimposed on photographs of the cousins. According to the article, in 1981 both women admitted that the photos were faked using cardboard cutouts, which is obvious to anyone with any sense of logic. [QUOTE=QuercusMax] Now, making fake _negatives_ would have been rather difficult. [/QUOTE] I assume you could just take a photo of the photoshopped photo to make a reasonable facsimile of a negative. Sticking the head of a celebrity on a person _in flagrante delicto_ would be really compelling to a person not jaded by years of photoshop and the internet. ---
**Author:** ![ianzin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/ed655f/32.png) [@ianzin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ianzin)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2010, 8:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-had-photoshop-100-years-ago/535609/6 "2010-04-10T20:04:27Z")
> [@Darryl\_Lict](#): > > According to the article, in 1981 both women admitted that the photos were faked using cardboard cutouts, which is obvious to anyone with any sense of logic. More accurately, one of them eventually admitted to the fakery, while the other maintained even to her dying day that at least one of the photos was genuine. ---
**Author:** ![Harmonious\_Discord](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/74df32/32.png) [@Harmonious\_Discord](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Harmonious_Discord)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2010, 8:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-had-photoshop-100-years-ago/535609/7 "2010-04-10T20:08:51Z")
Fake photos have been around a long time. [Tall tale postcards](http://www.wisconsinhistory.org/whi/feature/talltales/)