Airbrushed Camaro 5, Phoenix, Arizona, United States

• Photo retouching
Yezhov is clearly visible to Stalin's left. The photo was later altered by censors.
Airbrushing has long been used to alter photographs in the pre-digital era. In skilled hands it can be used to help hide signs that an image has been extensively retouched or "doctored".
As a result of Stalin's purges, and later destalinization, many photographs of officials from the periods show extensive airbrushing; often entire people have been removed. The term "airbrushed out" has come to mean rewriting history to pretend that something was never there. In contemporary academic discourse, the process of removing components from an image is formally known as object removal.