Hi @jonsigler!

It's true that we always hear the term "Photoshopped" a lot. It's becoming a word describing an edited or refined photo. We hear that from just daily conversation with friends or office mates (especially if you're working in a graphics-related company like I do) up to celebrity rumor mill (i.e. *put celebrity here* pictorial for a certain magazine is said to be Photoshopped).

The term "Photoshopped" came from a software from Adobe called Photoshop. This software is used for editing or polishing images, creating graphics layout and designs and the like. This application can do almost everything when it comes to editing and enhancing pictures that magazines and other companies are using it when it comes to their marketing peripherals and products.

So when someone said that an image is "Photoshopped" it means either it was created (from scratch) with the use of Photoshop or it was edited and enhanced using the application. There are also other image editing tools out there and probably some images were made using those other applications but since Photoshop is the most popular software for image editing, the term "Photoshopped" was coined.

A picture that has been photoshopped means that someone has used Photoshop in order to change the picture. For example, one college has a very neat media photo that they use. It is an action shot with a student surfing on a board, and the name of the college is on the board. The name of the college on the board was not on the original picture. Someone used editing software to insert the name of the college into the picture. So, that photo has been photoshopped. Another example would be when someone takes one person's body and puts a different person's head on the body. Basically, it means that the photo has been edited.