Ryan Tate of Gawker posted a sneak preview of an incredible photo retouching tool heading your way from Photoshop CS5. “The tool makes it easy to delete objects from a complex photo, without any trace they ever existed,” writes Tate.

If you’re a serious photographer who needs to touch up an errant shadow or inadvertent red-eye, it’s an absolute boon. But when you contemplate some of the less artistic applications created by the Content-Aware fill tool, your blood can turn to ice.

“The ramifications for Internet publishing are frightening,” Tate says. “It’s been possible to post Photoshopped images since the birth of the Web, of course, but until now you needed some modicum of experience to convincingly retouch pictures.” Now anyone can seamlessly drop into a photo – of a neo-Nazi rally for instance – the image of a person who was a continent away from the event. Conversely, you can remove an attendee at that rally from the picture and place him in the box seats of a baseball game.

If you think “seamless” is hyperbole, check out the video.

Be prepared for a mountain of mischief when bad guys discover the Content-Aware fill tool.

Richard Curtis