I 99% agree with you. The 1% exception is when someone else’s work is incorporated into one’s image. Obviously, if for personal use, it doesn’t matter. But if presented in a group setting, or if displayed publicly, I feel disclosure is fair. There can be plagiarism in art, just as in writing.

The Death Valley image I mentioned is a gray area. Is the photographer obligated to disclose the extreme editing? No. But it would have been more cool to label the image, “Death Valley Composite “ or something like that and not “Nighttime in Death Valley”. I think different people have different sensibilities when it comes to extreme editing, and there’s not a right or a wrong.

Are we confusing artistic technique with appropriate credit? Using someone else's work demands a credit, as a Harvard professor, who should have known better, recently found out.

How hard is it to say "this part was from ..." ??

Re the Death Valley composite. Because most digital images are retouched before publishing, if the image is not labeled SOOC, or if the image is not a press image, then I assume artistic license, a.k.a. retouching including composite, took place. Yeah it would have been informative to state it was a composite but I don't feel it was in any way necessary to state that. Just saying.

I have no objection to requiring full disclosure in a court of law or in a product claim.

As far as a family photo is concerned? Who cares? If I have a photo of my grandparents and their children at their 50th anniversary and one of the children blinked, is it a crime to use AI to open her eyes in the photo? I admit it. I did it. It was back in 1960 so I didn't know she blinked when I took the photo and by the time it was developed and printed it was too late to re-take the shot. So after digitizing the photo and using her sister's eyes to make it look like her eyes are open, the photo is a lie? There is no way someone is going to recognize that it has been transmogrified unless I tell them. I am happy to tell them, but at my age I only have a decade or two left, so after that the photo has to stand on its own.

Photography is many things to many people. For the most part it is documentary. You are recording an event to make it easier to remember sometime in the future. That is what family photos are all about. But even 'Documentary' doesn't have to mean perfectly accurate. It's OK in my book to correct errors in the image. And despite the claims of the SOOC crowd, cameras do make errors. The photographer makes errors. The subject makes errors. Why is it not OK to correct errors to present an image as something that documents the 'normal condition' of the subject?

So the 'artist' has the responsibility to disclose? Maybe. In those cases where it matters, there should be disclosure. My point is that it rarely matters. And the 'artist' is mortal, so the disclosure has to be made within the artist's lifetime. And now we get into the subject of the history of the image. Is it a print? Is the disclosure written on the back of the print? Overlaid on the image? If the print is copied will the disclosure be on the copy? Is it digital? Is the disclosure in the metadata? Does anyone even look at metadata?

Trying to ensure that AI doesn't change photography is a losing battle. It's a bunch of old curmudgeons yelling at the kids to get off their lawn. (Apologies to curmudgeon -- no disparagement is intended). It's a bunch of cave painters complaining about the newcomers using high technology 'brushes' instead of their fingers because the brushes can leave thinner streaks on the cave than the fingers can.

'Progress' happens. Deal with it.