[markbarendt]

It wasn't manipulated all that much to begin with. It was just an exercise in contrast control. Not like
assembling things together from completely different scenes in Fauxtoshop, or artifically colorizing
them to resemble something a kindergartner would do on acid, like some highly commercialized landscape photographers do nowadays. We all dodge/burn, bleach, select grade or filtration. The
days are long past when dodging was considered unethical "sundowning". But Dr. Pixel's basis argument is basically vacuous. Vision means nothing if you can't translate into something tangible.
You won't get a symphony out of a junior-high student playing a tuba for the first time!

Wait, wait, gotta stop laughing.

I don't remember Adams' words exactly but even he indicated that it was a lot of "work" to print Moonrise.

Come on, photography is all abstract, there is almost no place in photography where we don't make choices, manipulate the result.

You are drawing arbitrary lines in the sand.