The only ethical concern regarding post processing is when an image needs to record/represent reality - there are only a few situations where this is a hard requirement - and most who post here needn't be concerned.

The majority of photographers should be concerned about a properly exposed/cropped/spotted image. In the old days post processing was used to achieve this - and today it should be no different. Dodging and burning is almost as old as photography itself. Even Ansel Adams made reference to it when he wrote “Dodging and burning are steps to take care of mistakes God made in establishing tonal relationships.”

Post processing is taking a great image and turning it into a memorable work of art. There is no ethical concern there, other than the result should be expertly executed. There are far to many wannabes who thing that pushing the saturation and contrast sliders to 100% is artful. It is usually awful.

Your thesis is one of many. Mine is that post processing is whatever manipulation is necessary to make a visually pleasing and postively impactful image.

Should I have been ethical and not postprocessed the image below?

When I started this thread my intent was to generate discussion on postprocessing, since there are two main camps: for and against (with a lot of sub-branches).

It was not my intent to label people in either camp as wrong. I don't believe that is warranted nor effective. I'm all for people stating their opinion on the subject but what I would like to see is reasons why you hold the opinion you do.

Many of the responses above are centered on reality. "Reality" is often presented as the reason for one view or the other on the subject. Reality is subjective. Everyone sees it differently. If our eyes and brain cannot fully grasp reality, what chance does the camera have? On the same basis, what chance does postprocessing have?

I am not a commercial photographer. I have only sold one set of photographs in my recollection (a real estate set for a friend). My main purposes for taking photographs are: (1) documentation; (2) enjoyment. Documentation covers a lot of things, like showing the condition or state of something at a given time, making a photographic copy of something that I want to preserve or distribute, recording scenes that I would like to remember in the future (scenery or family). Enjoyment includes taking photos of things I like the look of, or things that I can use as a challenge to process to meet my recollection of something, or things that I can transmogrify to make a joke. When I try to edit my photos, reality is what my memory says it is.

There are 10 groups of people in the world. Those who use binary notation and those who don't. In photography, there is a difference of opinion on postprocessing.

Recent threads (and lots of past threads) expose the dichotomy of opinion on postprocessing. "Photoshop is lying". "Photographs are art".

There are reasons for both opinions, but the reasons do not overlap much. I'm in the "art" group and I will let everyone know that my photos are processed, sometimes just a bit, sometimes a lot. It's the difference between a pleasing photo and photojournalism, which eschews changes to the "original" image, whatever that is.

I would like to support the "art" group with an example from a recent wedding I attended. I have a photo that was taken by someone else (since I was in the wedding party I did not take any photos of the ceremony). I am presenting the photo to illustrate a point: it is my opinion that wedding photos are NOT photojournalism (unless there's some unusual newsworthy aspect of the wedding, which does not apply here). Wedding photos are to please the family. I don't have permission of everyone in the photo to post this so I have blurred all the faces, but I think my point can be seen here.

The original photo was taken as the bride and groom (now husband and wife) walked down the aisle away from the officiant. The wedding was outdoors on a sunny day, late in the afternoon. The photo shows most of the family so it is of interest to the family. Since it was late in the afternoon, some trees behind the photographer shaded half of the group. So the original photo shows a bunch of bright faces on the right and dim faces on the left. In my opinion this detracts from the value of the photo to the family (particularly those on the left).

I ran the photo through Photoshop and brightened the faces on the left. I only had a jpg to work with so the dynamic range wasn't really great, but I got something that I believe is better than the original as far as the left group is concerned. The left group is not as bright as the right, but they are not heavily shaded as much as they were.

My version is not reality if you only consider the response of the camera sensor to the available illumination.

My version is reality if you consider that the human eye can adapt to differences in illumination much better than a print of a photo can realize.

My thesis is that Postprocessing, even relatively heavy processing that Photoshop can produce, is a way to approximate the reality of a photo.