When Photoshop can get you in trouble

The touched-up film poster Keira Knightley is famously proud of her elfin figure. But it seems she was simply not up to scratch when it came to the poster for the movie King Arthur, and it was up to a Photoshop artist to invent what nature had only suggested, as these before and after shots demonstrate Photograph: Public Domain Time’s dark secret It was unfortunate that Time and Newsweek both featured the police mug shot of OJ Simpson in the same week of publication. All the more unfortunate for Time, whose artists had darkened Simpson’s skin, allegedly to make him look more threatening: or had Newsweek simply enhanced the shot? Either way, it proved we couldn’t always trust the images we saw Photograph: Public Domain The president’s reading problem George Bush is so dumb he can’t even hold a child’s book the right way up! Tee hee! Except, of course, the image is a fake. Look a the spine: the publisher’s logo is at the top of the copy the girl is holding, and also at the top of his copy - it should be at the bottom Photograph: Public Domain The anti-war rally that never was This photo of John Kerry addressing a 1970s anti-Vietnam rally with Jane Fonda contributed to him losing the 2004 presidential election. The photo was a fake: the original images are still available. But by the time the deceit was made public, the damage had already been done Photograph: Public Domain Kate Winslet on the cover of GQ magazine Feb 2003, digitally manipulated to make her look thinner Photograph: GQ Smoke rising from burning buildings after an Israeli air strike on the suburbs of Beirut. Reuters withdrew the image on the left after evidence emerged that it was manipulated by a Reuters freelance photographer to show more smoke Photograph: Adnan Hajj/Reuters Digitally manipulated photograph showing British soldier directing civilians to take cover from Iraqi fire near Basra. The LA Times photographer combined two separate photos Photograph: Brian Walski/LA Times Three missiles rising into the air while a fourth remains in the launcher during a test-firing in the Iranian desert. The same digitally altered image was also released by Sepah and public relations arm of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards which replaced the grounded missile with a fourth launched missile Photograph: Sepah News/AFP/Getty Images Sarah Palin photomontage showing her in a bikini with a rifle Photograph: Wink Emma Watson and her missing leg in the Burberry advertising campaign Photograph: Burberry Ralph Lauren adverts with digitally altered images of models to make them appear thinner Photograph: photoshopdisasters.blogspot.com Digitally cloned spring flowers caught in snow showers. Newspapers used this before the agency sent out a kill notice Photograph: PA The “tourist guy” was an internet phenomenon that featured a fake, manipulated photograph of a tourist who appeared in many pictures after the 11 September 2001 attacks Photograph: Public Domain Shark attack A composite of two photographs that gives the impression that a great white shark is leaping out of the water attacking a military helicopter next to San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge was widely circulated via email in 2001, along with a claim that it had been chosen as “National Geographic Photo of the Year”. The Photoshopped image was created by combining a picture of a HH-60G Pave Hawk helicopter, and a photo taken by South African photographer Charles Maxwell in False Bay, South Africa. Photograph: Public Domain