Michael Weinzettl talks you through the very first Special from the Lürzer’s Archive series, dedicated to the best digital artistry from around the world. About 14 years ago, our very first Lürzer’s Archive Special came out. It was simply called Advertising Photography (five years later it would be relaunched under 200 Best Ad Photographers Worldwide and became a very successful series of bi-annual books). Back in 1999, I remember talking to Walter Lürzer about the images we had selected to appear in this first Special and he was adamant about not having any in there that relied on a lot of “retouching” as he then called it - when it was, in some cases, an early form of CGI.   Flash forward to late 2010 when I last met Walter Lürzer personally to discuss some possible future projects for Archive. I told him about the enormous advances CGI had made in the past years and that it really could by now be considered an art in itself. Why not do a Special entirely devoted to these digital artists? He liked the idea very much and we proceeded to make preparations to publish our first 200 Best Digital Artists Worldwide.   Our first calls for entry were, so it seemed at first, quite successful but we soon found that the lion’s share of submissions turned out to be images in which digital artistry was put at the service of what once was called retouching.   Although we could see that it might take a lot of craft and dedication to create the illusion of perfect physical beauty - rejuvenate ageing stars or making cars appear shinier, sleeker and sexier - these were not the kind of images we had in mind.