And lo, mark.thomas.7@gmail.com <mark.thomas.7@gmail.com> emerged from the ether
and spake thus:

I feel a small measure of guilt invoking the name of the master, but
let us not forget the *great lengths* to which Ansel Adams went in the
darkroom to achieve most of the images that stand out in our memories.

There is certainly some limit to the amount of manipulation you can
perform on an image before it becomes something other than a
photograph, but I don't think Ansel felt it necessary to advertise in
specific terms the methods and techniques employed during printing to
achieve the prints that made him famous.

It has always been understood that the darkroom is a necessary phase
in the creation of a traditional photograph, and even when the plebs
are unaware of the kinds of manipulation that can be done during that
phase, still the results are accepted as photographs.

Without a doubt, Photoshop is a much more capable realm than the
darkroom, but I submit that it is a well-known phase of production in
digital photography, and that it does nothing to taint the merit of
the works produced.

However, in agreement with Mark Thomas 7, it should not be claimed
that images created in such a fashion are *pure*. I make no such
representations on my website, and while 99% of my images are single
exposures with no "super-imposition," I don't feel the necessity to
explain myself as an artist or technologist to my viewers. My work
speaks for itself, and sometimes it needs a bit of help from
Photoshop, or some help from 400mm moon photos from other nights <g>.
That certainly makes it no less art, and I don't feel it makes it any
less a photograph. That, however, is just my opinion.

Nowadays, it is a much steeper claim that your photographs were *not*
in any way altered!

Well, I certainly wouldn't be fooled by the image of her standing in her
husband's hand.....Now, it he were standing in her hand....Well, that's a
lot more realistic........

I've had a few people very confused by an in-camera double exposure I did
some time ago (it was my East of the Moon SI picture).

This is indeed a 'manipulation' in one sense, but then they get very puzzled
by the fact that there _is_ an original slide.  Even more puzzled when I
point out that the slide has a power cable on it that is't in the print, so
yes, there is some PS involved, but not in the appearance of an over-large
moon in a position it couldn't actually occupy.

Funny how fast people forget that manipulations and 'special effects' are a
great deal older than PS and digital...

Peter