I agree photo manipulation has always happened, to various degrees of perfection, since the dawn of photography.<p>I suppose the real difference is that before it took a more artisanal, time-consuming process, and now -- increasingly -- it takes far less time to create something convincing enough. Same with video: you could fake a video, do editing, etc, but it took time, skill, a location where to shoot, etc. Now it's becoming easier to do for everyone. And it's not perfect yet, but are we sure it won't get there? And it doesn't <i>have</i> to be perfect anyway, it just has to fool most people in a given window of time.