Meet Snowball, he's a friendly sort of chap when he's not out eating dogs for breakfast. Although this is an extreme example, the manipulation of photography is a common occurance throughout all media and the web is no exception. However, manipulating media in this way has various ethical and legal implications. Perhaps the most widely publicised criticism has been focused at the fashion industry, in particuler the manipulated images of models in magazines (in particular those with a young target audience.)
For designers, developing media for the web can be a bit of a minefield. The Misrepresentation Act (1967) and Trade Descriptions Act (1968)can provide some guidance on the legal aspects involved. Even so there still exists an ambiguous area between a promotional statement that is not intended to be binding (artistic licence) and the possibility of customers regarding promotional statements/material as literal representations. There is no one set precedence in contract law and different countries have different views on what constitutes misrepresentation.
Despite this there are a number of places out there to get help and advice:
Ethical Codes of Practice for digital photography
Photomanipulation powerpoint
answers.com article on the history of photo manipluation
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