
Originally Posted by
Bill Jobes
There's no easy or one correct answer. Most plug-ins, as noted above, simply assemble 'actions' that turn the key and open the vast resource that is Photoshop to complex manipulations.
Designers spend the time to create those actions, and we pay the price to use them.
They are merely workflow tools that open our creative visions to unparalled possibilities.
As John suggested at the top, sometimes the results are exquisite; at other times, unfortunate.
The nature of digital photography at the professional level demands that we 'develop' the raw (negative) file to fulfill our vision.
My personal strategy, when creating a 'photograph,' is to develop an image as close as possible to one that would have emerged from a film camera, had the image been properly exposed and focused.
But when creating a 'photo art' image, there are no limits to what the workflow may produce. HDR processing comes to mind as an obvious example.
The key to ethical processing, in my view, is to fully disclose, when appropriate or expected, any manipulations of the original captured image, unless of course the result is obvious.
This is absolutely mandatory in most all 'news' uses, or in photographic competitions.