I appreciate all the further input and discussion on this subject. The question of how much image "manipulation" is acceptable comes up often, but at some level we nearly all do it. Adjusting things like exposure, contrast and saturation is standard, almost required. Removing objects is common, and pretty easy to justify at one level. An offending soda can, or a jet contrail, in an otherwise pristine scene shouldn't be there, and on another day might well not have been; so just get rid of them in post, with a clear conscience. Go a step further and remove power lines if the purpose of the image is artistic rather than reportage. How about adding things? Filling in problematic areas or extending the canvas with content-aware fill?
For me a brighter red line to cross has been the addition of significant objects that weren't actually there. In most cases, I still hesitate to step over it.
I'm not wholly unsympathetic to Slobodan's position. It does initially feel like a superb image--even one created for artistic rather than documentary purposes--that was captured completely in-camera is somehow superior (more authentic) to a similar one that was constructed at least partially in software. As if the latter were somehow cheating, skipping the hard work and passing off a fake as equal to an original. But that's probably because most of us here are photographers rather than digital artists, and we value the work of our own kind over that of others. However, I can tell you that creating an image in your mind and executing it in software does not necessarily skip the hard work; at least not for me, in the case of the image you see above.
Moreover, how much of a great camera capture is simply luck? In this era when everyone carries a camera in their pocket, a lucky no-talent rank amateur can be at the right place at just the right moment to catch a rare event and capture an image that legions of dedicated professionals have worked towards for years and missed.
So I guess my main point is that there really are no bright lines, supportable by objective argument, when creating images for 'artistic' purposes. The topic is by nature subjective, and there is room for multiple approaches and points of view.
