I guess it's semantics and philosophy ime on the old forum again!

Back in the good old film era if you used black and white or color NEGATIVE film or any film, without "processing" the was nothing to look at unless you enjoyed viewing an unprocessed blank film or your negatives on a lightbox. So.. with negative films, to realize the image, PRINTING was/is the next required step.

Technically, you did not necessarily have to MANIPULATE the image- you could produce a straight contact print of and unmanipulated enlargement without burning, dodging or cropping if that was your preference. Most master photographers of the era were also master printers and tended to maximize the detail, range, composition and image tone in the printing stage. This would include Mr. Adams and most of his contemporaries.

The Zone System, of which Ansel Adams was one of the pioneers, inventors, and innovators and most famous practitioners was/is a balanced combination of deliberate camera work, precise customized film processing, and custom printing.

Henri Cartier-Bresson was said to have never cropped an image in the enlarging stage and insisted on determining the exact composition in the camera. He did, however, dodge and burn and allow his darkroom staff to do so. I know because I knew the guy you print his exhibition prints in New York City.

At one time there was a style whereby photographers would make their prints including the sprocket holes on 35mm negatives or the film identification indicators or code notches on roll and cut film to somehow prove the images were uncropped and were indeed real PHOTOGRAPHS. I never saw the aesthetic value in that but yes, to each his own.

Nowadays we have photographers of every ilk who are intensely pro or con just about everything in the photographic world, however, everything is relative. Some might think that Adams was the ultimate master of photographic manipulation, yet his NEMESIS was William Mortensen who manipulated the HELL out of negatives with overlays, texture screens, solarizations, paper negatives and more. Photojournalists. ostensibly, are no supposed to manipulate their images- ever hear of W. Eugene Smith? He spent endless hours in the darkroom, dodging, burning, bleaching, flashing and cropping but only to bring out every detail in his images to help tell the story. Weegee, (Arthur Fellig) processed images in a changing bag in the trunk of his car. Both told the story exceedingly well!

So...post processing can mean simply bringing out ALL the information on a negative or digital file or enhancing it, or completely changing it up or creating special effects- perhaps a combination of some or all of these in a singular image? This is up to the photographer- each individual photographer. If you consider photography and art, please remember that every artist, painter, sculptor, etcher, or whatever, works in a different way as to the use of color or the lack thereof, the medium, style, and approach. It would be awfully dull if everyone worked in the same way and produced the same things, the same way and in the same manner all the time.