If it's on the Internet, it must be true: Photoshop or not

Don't you love this Photoshop thing?

Pictures can't be considered real evidence anymore. Now, photos can be doctored so you can't tell what's real and what isn't. And about a zillion people can doctor photos right there on their computer and release them on the Internet.

And you know how it works from there. It's on the Internet so you know it's true, right? If you believe that, I know a Nigerian princess who is willing to share her vast fortune with you.

I knew where photo technology was headed in the early 1990s when I was working for the Mohave County (Arizona) Standard. Matt Wanner, the publisher there, had a brand new camera he was dying to show me.

It looked like one of those cameras you used to get for free when you renewed your subscription to Sports Illustrated, but there was a port on the side where you could plug it into your computer. I was looking at my first digital camera. The camera cost a short stack of hundred-dollar bills back then; such is the way with brand new technology.

"Watch this," Matt said as he took my picture. A minute later, my image showed up on the screen. Then he proceeded to alter that photo, using a new program called Photoshop.

"Wow," I said as I watched my nose grow on the screen. OK, there are times I may dump a whole load of Bravo Sierra in your lap, but I thought the nose-growing thing only happened with Gepetto's creation.

On screen, Matt proceeded to give me a haircut. I know there was some psychodrama involved there; back then a lot of my employers were after me to get my hair cut. I'd usually come back with two estimates, but that's another story.

"That's a pretty amazing thing," I said, although inside I had this chilly feeling. Nothing is safe anymore. The practice of journalism was history as of that day.

"You mean I can take part of one photo, part of another photo, and call it real?" I asked.

True, Matt said.

"You mean I can take a picture of the President and put him in bed with Jeanne Kirkpatrick, and create my own sex scandal?" Hey, I'm a journalist. You know that thought has crossed my mind at least once.

There's a joke there, by the way. The president then was Bill Clinton, the original "pants on the ground" guy when that expression meant something entirely different from what it does now. And Jeanne Kirkpatrick, former ambassador to the United Nations, was probably the only woman in history who could make Nancy Pelosi look hot. Not even Photoshop could help either one of them.

It's not just Photoshop. There are a few other graphics editors that can doctor your photos just as well. My computer has GIMP, which is pretty close and a whole lot cheaper (try free). But you don't GIMP a photo, but you can sure Photoshop it. That program is now part of the language.

OK. I promised. Some Photoshopped works:

This is PrezBo in the wake of the ever-growing BP oil spill.

And you mustn't forget George Bush, checking out the scene of Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

Suffice it to say, BP may become Obama's Katrina. But you already figured that.

Oh yeah. Here's me, playing the last set of a two-day bluegrass festival. I was in four different bands and each of those bands played at least one gig at the festival -- plus a Saturday night show elsewhere that ran into overtime.

If I can't get my coffee in the morning, there's always Photoshop. I might even look human.

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