> Photographers not only retouch their photos to make the subject look better, but to also make their photograph look better. Most photographers don't go to the length that the guy in Gahalyn's link go to, but they will whiten your teeth, etc. Before I started my chemo, my dad took pictures of me. I had just had surgery on my neck. I, for one, was glad he was able to remove the ugly tape that covered the incision.
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> I dunno. I don't think retouching is a bad thing. I certainly wouldn't take offense at finding out a photographer retouched my photo. But maybe I think that because my dad is a photographer and I've seen what photographers do (and how they think) to make *the photo* look better.
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> Retouching is just a small part of the art of photography.

I think the difference would be between photography as a means of recording images accurately (for historical purposes or whatnot) and photography as an art. Photographers as artists may be assigned the task of creating a thing of beauty out a person or a scene that is not necessarily itself perfectly beautiful; retouching the photograph is another tool among many used to make that vision a reality. And before anybody pooh-poohs too much about the realism being critical to art, bear in mind that the portaits created by classical painters generally present their subjects as more perfectly beautiful than they necessarily were. So the art of retouching has been with us for many years; it just goes by a new name. ;-)

It all reminds me of a letter I saw printed in a Playboy magazine some time ago. This dude's all complaining about how the Playboy photographers retouch the photos and that's deceptive and on and on. Playboy's response was something to the effect of dude, you're hardly blowing the lid off a great conspiracy here. We're creating fantasies. Of *course* we retouch the photos.