Alice, I'm still lost. Are you against changing a photo after it's been taken, manipulating the truth photographically, exaggerating to manipulate consumers' opinions, or the use of digital means to accomplish any of the above?

"Compare pre-digital magazines to the ones we have today and you will see more idealized enhancement just because it is faster and easier to do." In a word, Bull. The only difference is that today it is done to photos and looks like a photo and in the past the idealization was done via illustrations. I've seen the perfect mom in the kitchen and the 98 pound weakling at the beach. The exaggeration in the ads hasn't changed, only the avenue of the visual representation.

So you're arguing that it isn't the degree of manipulation that's extreme, just that it's more pervasive?

regarding stretching of legs - any competent photographer can do that in the camera. It's called corrective posing. Any decent portrait photographer (I'm talking professional here, not walmart, olan mills, or their ilk) knows and uses these techniques with every client to make them look their best.
A good lab tech can (and did) stretch images in the darkroom.

Greek sculpture? Somehow I think we've gotten WAY out of the realm of digital here. Once again, it shows that manipulation is nothing new. I would think than any given sculpture back then would have had more of a per-capita impact than any given photo now.

"deliberate changes to persuade buyers to spend their money on a product" This is what marketing is. It's not new. Since food was brought up earlier in the thread, I can remember as a kid reading about how they would put motor oil in the beer on commercials and ads to give it a more golden appearance. They just did their manipulation pre-photo. It's still a lie to appear more appealing.

JohnoSC - "Reuters stringer, purporting to show massive devastation to Beirut" This is nothing new. Go to the library and do a little research on the "photo fakes" that Hitler had put together for propaganda purposes.

6- "The altering of history i.e. through distorting digital pics, documents, news articles ... anyone can do this." You have got to be kidding, right? I would bet that if every single one of us on this forum were to distort whatever things we liked, that not one piece of it would make it into "history." Just because "anyone" can do it, doesn't mean it's going to affect history. And those powerful enough to have an impact distort it before it gets to the general public anyway. You want to see distorted history? Get on any file sharing network and do a search on "banned cartoons" then ask yourself why you never see any of Disney's cartoons that had characters in blackface in them anymore. Or "Song of the South" for that matter.