In the 20th century Soviet Union , as a result of Stalin 's purges and later destalinization , many photographs of officials from the periods show extensive airbrushing ; often entire human figures 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 . '' The term " airbrushed " or " airbrushed photo " has also been used to describe glamour photos in which a model 's imperfections have been removed , or in which their attributes have been enhanced . The term has often been applied in a pejorative manner to describe images of unrealistic female perfection and has been particularly common in reference to pictures in Playboy , and later Maxim
Stalin 's purges
Great Purge
Airbrush