WHEN actress Kate Winslet appeared on the most recent cover of Britain's GQ magazine, she caused quite a stir. The reason? Winslet - normally considered curvaceous, and proud of it - now seemingly possesses the dimensions of a supermodel.

Quickly hunted down by the media, the actress set the record straight, proclaiming she hadn't lost 10 kg but, rather, that the magazine had digitally altered the photos. Confirming the weighty proclamation, a spokesperson for GQ said that the photos were manipulated - a practice they commonly engage in - adding that, "If people don't believe the pictures are enhanced, they're kidding themselves."

Indeed, in this digital age, such manipulation has become far too common. Last year, a photograph of a would-be streaker at an ice hockey game was pulled from a Canadian wire service after if was discovered that the photo had been altered to remove the man's genitals, which were partially visible. The streaker in question had taken off everything but his socks and hopped over the three metre glass boards and then, in an incredible display of co-ordination, slipped on the ice and knocked himself unconscious. A perfect photo of the poor soul as he leapt over the glass would have been rendered unprintable by the presence of this unwanted 'member' of the audience - so it was deleted.

Putting ethical issues aside - a standard practice when examining the content of the internet - you'll discover that the manipulation of photos is a popular pastime these days. Many sites, such as www.worth1000.com, hold regular competitions wherein the online community is encouraged to take an original photo presented by them and alter (or 'photoshop') it into something else. These contests often have guidelines, such as one of the most recent ones on their site, which required contestants to take photos of famous TV families or groups and 'recast' them by superimposing the faces of others. The results were interesting to say the least, and included a submission of the cast of the show Friends hanging out with their good buddies Ariel Sharon and Yasser Arafat. Friends indeed.

Another contest on the site encouraged competitors to replace objects in everyday pictures with children's toys, seemingly in an attempt to bring life back to simpler times. Some amusing submissions included Norman Bates wielding a teddy bear instead of a knife, a soldier surveying the landscape through a View-Master instead of binoculars, and a laptop computer using high tech Lite Brite technology.

For more of the same, head over to www.fark.com, a site definitely worth taking a long look at. Every day, Fark pulls stories from news sources around the world, labels them as appropriately as possible into categories such as "strange," "cool," "stupid," and "obvious" and encourages comments from its always expanding fanbase. Among these items - which are reason enough to check the site out - are timely pictures offered up as photoshop fodder.

One of the latest contests revolved around the recent People for Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) campaign against the evils of Kentucky Fried Chicken. The original PETA ad features a cartoon rendering of Colonel Sanders holding a knife to a frantic chicken under the words "The Colonel's Secret Recipe: Live Scalding, Painful Debeaking, Crippled Chickens." Rising quickly to the Colonel's defence came a photoshopped entry featuring two animated people shouting at a man eating chicken under the words "PETA's not-so-secret-recipe: Shortsighted Intolerance, Loathsome Diatribe, Sanctimonious Whining." Another version revolved around the 'real' meaning behind the organisation's acronym: "Please Eat Tasty Animals."

Yet another offering pointed out that the Colonel's secret recipe is, in fact, Love. As the photoshopped ad reads: "Every chicken's spirit is special to us. We treat each one like we would our own children, after all, they are the real heroes behind every delicious box of our fried chicken."

One final stop on the photoshop trail is www.photoshopcontest.com, a site devoted to altered pictures. Feel free to submit your best efforts for the always important approval of the online community, or simply search their archives for some ideas on how to get yourself started.

If nothing else, you can learn how to turn a photo of yourself into the spitting image of Kate Winslet. And, yes, that goes for guys too.

- dyasvinski@look.ca