Well, they did have the next best thing--airbrushing. There's a lot of photos from the Stalin era where people who fell out of favor with Stalin were liquidated and their likeness in a photo next to Stalin were airbrushed out.
I am aware of that. The disappearing people in Stalin Photographs, one by one as they fell out of favor.
My favorite by far, Mao swimming in the Yangtze River.
Photoshop just would have made it much easier for them.