A friend, now a professional photographer, came into our darkroom and my brother handed him a jug of home-made wine and said, "Drink this." He did.

When it was over, our friend wiped his mouth and said, "Not bad. What is it?"

"Photoflow."

Anyway....

If there is no symbol that the photo is digitally changed, then the deception should be immediately evident from the subject matter of the picture. This isn't easy, though.

Back in 1961, a photo of the 1907 library here was taken with a 1910 car in the foreground. The parking meter was shrouded and the photo taken from an angle that hid most of the shrouded meter. Until I found the original set of photos taken in this instance, everyone at the library thought that the photo had been taken in 19teens. Those who knew better had been scattered or had died, and it took some doing for me to disprove the "19teen" theory.

This wasn't done to deceive, but had the theory not been exploded it would continued to do so.

"Prove it!" has to be the watchword. As for the Iraqi photos, either the ones I've seen were retouched or the bodily parts of the prisoners are made differently from those of folks in the US.