This is one of the question revolves in lot of people’s mind. How legitimate an image remains after editing in photoshop? In my opinion answer lies at 2 places: Surface and Substance.
At Surface level we can reject this as a morphed photograph because of extensive editing done in photoshop. It doesn’t represent the captured fact and shows us something never existed. So it is not a legitimate photograph.
If we investigate further and look at substance level then we get into a new dimension of photography. Photography is an art and not forensic science. So instead of reproducing fact, the job of photographer is to show the art he/she can create using the tool (camera) and paint (light). It’s about creating vision of photographer. It may be different from how it was in reality but it will be very close to how the photographer saw in his artistic mind. On this basis I will have to break photoshopped images into two words LEGITIMATE and PHOTOGRAPH.
Are extensively photoshopped images are photographs, my answer to this is NO. Are they legitimate, my answer to this is YES. Because they are not real photographs but they are art created by artists (photographers).
So where does moral values go? again IMO it’s duty of photographer to mark it as Fine Art rather than photographs. With these notes here is one photoshopped image:
This one has everything real other than Clouds, which are created in photoshop. The original doesn’t look bad either but I added clouds just for kicks





