That's an artistic judgement that we all make when we look at an image. I am a great believer in processing - I spent hours poring over Ansel Adams's technical books as a kid, and used his methods to achieve the images that I "saw" in my mind when I was taking a photograph. Even back then, it was possible to "overcook" an image in a way that didn't look good to my eyes. Adams and his f/64 friends were virulently opposed to the gauzy unsharpness and contrast of the "pictorialist" school.

Today, we have so many more tools, and there are so many visual examples presented to us through all sorts of media, that overcooked has become the new normal. (Go look at motivational and other commercially available posters to see examples of people whose sliders are all too far to the right) We don't have to like it, but HDR, oversaturated colors, and impossible focus stacking are real trends. Do a little, you may produce a great image. Do too much, IMHO, and you'll wind up with images that produce negative reactions.

So, to me, unless you're a photojournalist or documentarian, there is no intrinsic merit or superiority in shooting SOOC. Exposure, contrast, and other variables are just as controlled in a digital environment as they were in a wet one. The choice of how much is too much, and of what constitutes excessive artificial enhancement is in the eye of the beholder, just as it always has been.

Andy

yes, it was but done without post processing. When I was in my heyday, it was mostly black and white and slide film. I just do not like to see pictures that are overcooked and not realistic. I've been doing the digital since about 2009. Anything coming out of a camera now is processed, however, the more realistic it is the better I like it. To each his own. I must say there are times when I realize a need for something more to make the picture or just the subject stand out. But definitely do not like overcooked and unrealistic images.

If an image by a photographer in search of the artistic can be called fake, then all those artistic images on canvas must also be fake. When I or any photographer works with an image to bring it as close to our visualization of a scene as we can, we are not faking. Trust us on this, we are being as genuine as we can be. We are striving to come up with something that others will find worth looking at. And usually wish we could do better. Where is it written that the use of a camera to capture an image as a first step in a process, restricts how that image can be displayed. Should canvas only be used in practical applications, like tents? To take a stand and proclaim to the world that the only true images are those that have never been adjusted in anyway is either a display of ignorance about creativity or overblown arrogance. Or both.