Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2024/04/17/the-soviets-mastered-photo-manipulation-long-before-the-age-of-photoshop.html
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Wow, that’s amazing. They made Stalin look 5 kilos lighter.
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Wow, Soviets mastered history redaction…
Let us talk all colonial stuff US inherited from UK…
Let us talk about Allende and Goulart…
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I learned about this from The Tsar of Love and Techno. Such an odd book it was good.
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As a teenager, I came back to The Commissar Vanishes again and again. The photos made it such a visceral experience, further driving home the point that Stalinist Russia was really like Orwell’s Oceanea.
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Retouching photos (the formal umbrella term for manipulations, restorations, colorizations, etc.) is an artform regardless of what tools are used. (and the pre-digital tools used are still around, I might add.)
I will go as far as stating that a lot of terms we are familiar with in the computer age came directly from retouching photographs and the publishing industry, right down to the name of the product Adobe publishes for that work now- Photoshop.
But I suspect I’m preaching to the choir, here. 
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Is someone stopping you (or anyone else) from talking about any of that?
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It’s so easy to point Russia as All The Evil In The World (like Wall Street wasn’t a choice)
Is the same person who is telling you you’re not allowed to talk about colonialism also telling you that Russia is All the Evil in the World? Or is this just a tankie thing?
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We do, nobody is above criticism.
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There’s a reason why photoshop has “dodge” and “burn” tools–photographers were manipulating things in the darkroom long before adobe came along.
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Nope… Just from someone that saw (and still see) the reflexes from the US-driven paranoia of the Red Scare on South America, especifically Brazil.
If you think that questioning US policies and social philosophies is a tankie thing, put me as a tankie
Could have? I think it’s pretty well known that he was referencing the state propaganda machine of Soviet Russia, though he may not have been aware of its full extent.
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Hmm. I see your profile was created in 2013, but you’ve only read about 20 hours worth of material here. This might explain how you’ve missed that dissecting and “… questioning US policies and social philosophies…” is an everyday thing here, or more like multiple times of day here.
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Do you even read the very many threads that are full of criticisms of the US? Because there are TONS here… so, not sure what you’re upset about… We can criticize both the Soviets and the US… We can also walk and chew gum, etc…
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Its leadership has been very accommodating in that regard. Tsar or kommissar, they don’t bother hiding their complete contempt for the common Russian.
Most regular posters here regularly criticize U.S. policies as well. We just manage to do so without engaging in that favourite shoddy practice of the Soviets and Putin known as Whataboutism.
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For some truly old fakes (Lincoln-era) and lots of fascinating examples, google for the 2019 MIT course lecture notes by Fredo Durand, “Ethics and Computational Photography - people - MIT” - fascinating PDF that includes the Stalin example and much else.
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