The wonderful thing about photography is that it makes things look much better than they are. The worst thing about photography is that it makes things look much better than they are.
While relatively new tools like Photoshop, Illustrator, etc. can be used to radically change a photo, you don't have to do any of that to experience what the OP described.
The gel coat on our 1973 boat was beat up for 25 years before we bought it by the California sun, let alone previous owners banging things into it and whatnot. It's eggshelled, dinged, worn thin in spots, and scratched.
But back away ten feet and take a photo and the boat looks great.
I would always assume that what I saw in a photo of a boat was better than what I would see if I saw the boat in person. Gnorts is correct, one can take a bad photo that makes something good crappier than it is. But assuming a properly taken photo, they invariably portray the subject as more flawless than it really is.
If it didn't work this way Playboy magazine would never have gotten off the ground.
As to video, don't pin your hopes on that. We regularly manipulate video using the same kinds of tools the still folks use to make the things in the video look far better than they are. I've removed dirt, grease, scratches, and dings, to say nothing of entire portions of paint jobs from airplanes using things like Adobe AfterEffects. I regularly greatly enhance color, change the color balance and tone, alter the density, add or subtract sharpness, change red tails to blue tails, blue upholstery to brown, and on and on and on, all by simple mouse clicks.
Add in the expertise of our CGI people and they can fool an audience into seeing things in a video that aren't even there.