In the film era, photographers usually didn’t have to choose between “appearance” and “trustworthiness.”

It was so hard to doctor a photo without detection that the photos with the best “appearance” were usually no less “trustworthy.”

But in the digital era, photographers often have to make that choice between “appearance” and “trustworthiness.”

It is now so easy to doctor a photo without detection that the photos with the best “appearance” are often less “trustworthy.”

More on the challenge of undetectable manipulation in the film era

More on the ease of undetectable manipulation in the digital era