People....get over yourselves.

KNOWING every adjustment, focus point, filter, tweak and adjustment does not make the image better...it does not lead to better understanding, better appreciation, better visual experience.
A photographic image stands on its own. You like it, you don't like it. It means something to you or it doesn't. It looks good or it doesn't.....and all of that is your personal response.

This string reminds me of the psuedo-intellectuals in the 40's-50's who sat around picking apart poems and books. Each trying to sound more 'intellectual' than the other...

Nitpicking an image is a complete waste of time. Trying to minutely figure out the technique or style of a particular photographer completely ignores and destroys the impact of the final image.

Studying an image to see what has been done and perhaps what you might learn from the technique is one thing. We all do that. Critiquing for the sake of critiquing is self serving and meaningless.

You have absolutely no idea as to what the photographer actually 'saw', or wanted to express. None..zero. The image is their vision, their interpretation, their statement. Who are you to question or critique, or pass judgement as to what 'should' or 'shouldn't' be done.

And, if post processing is used, SO WHAT!!!!! Really...so what.

Creating great photographs used to require an understanding of light and of composition. Mastering the functions of your camera was essential. For nature photography putting yourself in the right place at the right time, along with a measure of good luck, was also required. Sometimes the results were good, often they were marginal, and occasionally they were great. Great patience was required.

Now we have cameras that will automatically focus on the eye of an animal - even a bird in flight. Taking a 20-shot-per-second series of photos of a bird in flight allows the "photographer" to select the best of dozens of photos - perfect timing, the ability to keep the bird in focus, or good luck is not required. I see snippets taken from what is essentially a video or posts of a sequence of multiple photos of a bird landing or a bird taking flight and I think to myself: "If I wanted a video I would have gone to YouTube".

The last few days we have seen folks singing the praises of sky replacement. Maybe "bird replacement" or "model replacement" will be next (certainly done in the advertising world). But should such dramatically altered photos be posted here without disclaimer? This is a long way from dodging and burning.

Some Hoggers love to splice in a sunset or sunrise into a photo where none previously existed. This is frequently not acknowledged - I always look closely at the light and shadows in the rest of the photo and when I see light and/or shadow that are impossible given the angle of the setting/rising sun I cannot decide whether to laugh or be angry.

Call me a Luddite if you will. Maybe I am slightly envious of the final results of such deceptive skills. But I try to resist the lure (well... I admit that the eye-focus thing gives me a little GAS...)

While dodging, burning, etc. are all recognized darkroom techniques, the film era was very much limited by the dynamic range of existing films. Now, in the digital era, dynamic ranges are far broader, and they allow the photographer to capture images in the editing process, that were unheard of in the film era.

The editing feature algorithms are far more powerful than I ever dreamed of during my film days. And as an adjunct to that, I've been able to scan negatives and transparencies, getting far more pleasing images than I could ever get when I shot film.

Just yesterday, I was editing some Kodachrome (200) transparencies which had suffered a bit of color shift since they were taken in 1992. A trip through Photoshop Elements restored the images to what I'd originally seen.

I relish the thought of smart editing, actually increasing the dynamic range by bringing up latent images at both ends.