Assalaamu alaykum wa rahmatullaahi wa barakaatuhu. I have read a fatwa regarding drawing or painting portraits. I have also read a fatwa regarding photos of living beings on your site. May Allaah reward you. I want to know whether it is permissible or not to change the appearance of living beings in photos by using editing tools. There are plenty of applications available in smart phones and PC's that are used to edit the human face from being bold to having good hair, insert a beard, increase the brightness of the face, make one appear younger, and many other changes in how the face looks. My question is: is it permissible to make such changes in one's face by using these applications or software?

All perfect praise be to Allaah, The Lord of the worlds. I testify that there is none worthy of worship except Allaah and that Muhammad is His slave and Messenger.

Perhaps you have learned from our fataawa that the ruling about photographic images is an issue on which there is a difference of opinion among the scholars.

In any case, and regardless of whether they are forbidden or permissible, making such changes (improvements on images) is more likely impermissible – and Allaah knows best – because the argument of those who are of the view that they (the photographic pictures) are permissible is that these images are not among the forbidden image-making that is meant by the Islamic texts; rather, they only consist of the reflection of a real scene that has been captured, while they agree that drawing pictures of animate beings and the like by hand is forbidden because it consists of imitating the creation of Allaah.

Ibn 'Uthaymeen said about this, “Our view about photographic pictures is that this machine that takes the pictures immediately, the person has no involvement in it, our view is that this is not making images; rather, it merely is transmitting an image that Allaah has created by this machine, so it is an impression, and the person did not contribute anything to it. The mentioned ahaadeeth are about image-making by a person by which he imitates the creation of Allaah...”

If the matter is not just taking a photo of a real thing but there is an involvement of the person by altering and improving and the like, then the matter is no longer permissible; rather, it enters the circle of prohibition as there is a reason for the prohibition in it, which is the involvement of a person by which he imitates the creation of Allaah.

Shaykh Ibn 'Uthaymeen said about the types of images: type 3: he restricted this to be without any modification or improvement, as he said, “Taking a photo with special rays without any modification or improvement by the photographer; as this type is an issue of difference of opinion among the contemporary scholars...”

So he stipulated not making any modification or improvement of photos, and he is of the view that they are permissible.

Allaah knows best.