BTW, there is a secret – take the photos YOU enjoy.
have fun,
Wolfgang
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Good! It isn’t about making a image. 
It’s about , mostly rawfiles because those can be molded the most, trying out things.
Streetlight and shadows great for working out how many ways there are to compres highlight and lift shadows. Does it look unreal? Most likely.
Take flowers and create a flower in a different color in post.
It isn’t about ending up with something you might export to keep.
This is all about the HSL tool. Finding out what it could do for me.
When it just was made and given to us by dxo i was intriqued. Do i like it? Do i need it? Can i understand it’s working?
Fooling around do things just because i can , see what happens and can i counter upcomming problems?
And i did the same for controlpoints. Brush Masking, invert , copy modify all kinds of trick’s and skills. Did i end up with real endresults? Yes do you like them as in would they be reality? No not all but those blunt overstretched tryouts are the bases for the subtle corrections i can do now on other images.
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Which is all very well and good if you are submitting work that has to be factually accurate but, unless that is your current job, don’t limit yourself unnecessarily to such strict codes.
Anyhow, that code seems more concerned with adding things to images rather than simply improving its visual qualities…
Entrants are encouraged to explore techniques that serve the cause of visual journalism. Different cameras and lenses can achieve particular effects. Varying aperture and exposure settings can record the scene in different ways. Altering ISO settings and the use of flash lighting enables less visible situations to be recorded.
This means photography gives us a creative interpretation of the world.
Especially with RAW files, you have usually got to do some “manipulation” simply to get the image into a viewable state.
Let me cite again one of my favourite examples of the need for such manipulation…
SOOC
After PhotoLab
This is what I really saw and experienced when I was taking the shot.
But it’s not just edited in PhotoLab to rebalance the distribution of tones, I also had to use two physical graduated neutral density filters at different angles in order to bring the range of light to within the capabilities of the sensor.
All these “manipulations” in no way detract from the ethics of making an image that reflects truly what the photographer experienced at the time. OK, I removed the flare on the rocks to the right but that is an artefact of the lens on the camera, not what I could see with my eyes.
With my eyes I could also see a great deal more detail in the shadows but, in order to avoid that horrendous over-processed HDR look, I chose to represent the shadows in a way that makes sense to someone viewing the image.
Mike, I’m not suggesting you loosen up on your ethics (when it comes to journalistic integrity), just that, as @Wolfgang says, you take time to enjoy making images which are not destined for the scrutiny of journalistic competition judges 
Oh, and if you really want to challenge your ethics…
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@Joanna, thank you for this link – very cinematic!
Wolfgang
just checked for this guy and came across https://blog.flickr.net/en/2020/12/28/16-questions-about-one-photo-with-blaise-arnold/ >> question 12.
Muhahaa! Best answer!
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what is reality – does it matter?
@mikemyers – it’s all about fun, not to fool people
Enjoy and don’t limit yourself,
Wolfgang
Some other example of manipulation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_of_images_in_the_Soviet_Union.
Or google on ‘there’s no way like the american way’.
https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Margaret_Bourke-White.
You will find full images and cropped images. The last one without the black people, a complete different message.
George
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To be honest, by the time I got a third of the way through these photos, I saw a nice collection of photos from the past, with a third of the photo blocked by stuff added on later - I found my self feeling annoyed that I couldn’t see the entire original photo.
I’m sure a lot of work went into doing this, but it was completely wasted on me, not to mention that the person(s) who captured the real image aren’t getting credit for the photo.
I found myself staring at the background, paying next to no attention to the stuff blocking my view.
Ethics? if ethics were involved, the original photographer should be given credit. To me, the new stuff added on top just damages the photo that I find myself wanting to see.
Since this is a forum, can I ask how each of you would feel, were someone to do this on top of one of your images, without your permission?
I guess how I felt, is when I go to a movie theater, and can’t see the whole screen because of someone sitting in front of me, blocking my view. Annoyed would be pretty close, but I’m sure I would have changed seats long before I got to the end.
Actually, you are seeing the entire original image - or should I say images, composite that is? Blaise takes every part of the photo himself, travelling to locations, finding props and models and photographing some of them in situ and sometimes others, like the props and models, in a studio.
See this interview here for more insights…
Then he assembles everything to make the one overall image.
Joanna, sorry, but I don’t think “manipulated” applies to your photos. What you did was adjust the image so people could view what was there. Had you moved the rock to the right, THAT would be manipulation, and wrong.
As I see it, what you do is bringing out the information that was captured in the scene. You’re enhancing the reality, not creating it.
Everything you showed WAS captured in the original raw image file, so those contest rules would leave you free and clear. Noplace did they say the image had to be captured as a ‘jpg’, and if they wanted the original, you could have simply sent them the raw file.
Anyway, that’s my opinion, and obviously the contest rules aren’t adequate as written. A raw file captures more than a jpg. An infrared file captures things the human eye can’t see.
If you deliberately made your print much darker, to hide something you didn’t want to show up, that would be different, and you would, and should, be disqualified. But all you are doing, is bringing out all the detail captured by the camera as a single image, and a single file.
Maybe I’ll write them and ask about this.
I would love to have the skill to be able to do what you do, as well as you do it. I’m getting closer, so I’m happy about that, but you are much more of an artist than I ever will be. I ain’t never gonna catch up with you!!! …but I’m getting better just from trying.
Then they would have found out that I “deleted” my friend Helen, who I didn’t spot, taking a photograph from in front of the vertical rocks under the left of the house 
But then this is an art photograph, not a factual record.
I always used the waist level finder with the M645 and took many images less. Not because a WLF is more difficult to use, but because it makes a difference to look down at an image instead of looking at a sight through a device. The WLF introduces a level of abstraction that helps in many ways.
I lost track of what we were discussing, but I do know and understand what you mean. I know it is somehow “different” for me to view things through the optical window on my Leica, or the huge window on my DSLR, and I think you just explained the reason why. With the DSLR, the resulting file will likely be exactly what I viewed in the viewfinder (unless I warped it in the camera settings) and the Leica, just like with my ancient film cameras, was sort of an approximation of what I would capture. Viewing the world through my Leica is like seeing it with my eyes, no manipulation, no enhancing, since all it is, really, is a window.
I actually do have a WLF for my Nikon F2 - I was looking it over yesterday. Maybe part of the reason I enjoyed film so much, was that there were just a set of mechanical controls, and a button to capture the image. With the WLF, isn’t composing the image similar to what one might do on a ground glass screen on a view camera? It’s been so long, I don’t remember…
In that case, you would have gotten a DQ, unless you left her in the image.
I do know what you mean - as art, anything goes. It’s like painting, where you have full control of what is included in the image, or not.
(In my world, that crosses the line from photograph to photo-illustration, but that’s just me.)
about envision …
@mikemyers
When you talk about rules et al, you are only allowed to use a camera with roughly 47° viewing angle.
But the ‘manipulation’ starts with …
- the subject you choose
- the moment you choose to take the picture
- the excerpt (window), distance and camera position you decide for
- the aperture you choose (f2,8 vs f8 …)
- the exposure time you dial in (longtime exposure vs 1/50 sec)
- the use of filters
- available light vs artificial illumination
etc.
Then you develop your ‘true’ pic with software, like PhotoLab.
And the moment you …
- crop
- change exposure
- change color temperature / tonality
- change contrast
- brighten / darken parts locally (gradation, control points, using masks)
- convert to B&W
you continue to ‘manipulate’. – So, what do you expect in a forum about photo software?
Enjoy what YOU do, but relax. This is no contest, no photoclub …
and have fun, Wolfgang
This is a raw converter, not an image manipulating program. Though many do want it to become.
George
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I think it is many things, to many different people and desires. My brain got shaped (manipulated?) by things like this:
(https://www.theatlantic.com/photo/2019/08/photography-of-margaret-bourke-white/596980/)
Personally, I don’t see PL4 as a “raw converter”. To me, it’s an image editor. Most of my involvement in PL4 and this forum, has been the way I’ve learned how to use the tools to create better photographs. I know it can do much more than that, and I agree that learning how to manipulate things will improve my ability to edit images into what I want to show people. I would love to be able to do what Ansel Adams did, and I figure I now have the tools to do it, I’m just lacking in the mental area knowing what to do, where, and when. I’ve got my own borders between photograph and photo illustrations, but that’s just something personal.
One of the first things in that link is:
“My name is Blaise Arnold and I am a photographer. I have worked for 35 years in advertising as well as for magazines.”
Everything else follows. Photography for advertising and magazines is very different from photo journalism. Anything goes, to get across some kind of message. Noting I have posted here applies to either field. Most magazines, and especially advertisers, are free to do anything they want to make photos look better, to get across a message. People’'s bodies get modified, details get added or removed, and so on.
The places, and people, and web sites I was involve in while growing up were 95% about photojournalism photography. Many (most?) magazines are expected to manipulate images however they wish. Those modified images would not be accepted by newspapers, or photo contests such as the one that was posted earlier.
Me? I’ve been wearing a cap that says “photojournalist” for almost my whole life. I did find a way to escape, just by using the term “photo illustration”. With that small change, any and all my inner limitations vanish, and I can paint with light however I wish to.
Maybe, starting today, I will change hats, and enjoy the fun that all of you are having, without my old shackles. From this new point of view, much of what I’ve posted in the past few days becomes irrelevant. 
Good question. Does it matter? For my participating here in this forum, not any more.
I agree. The replacement word can be “art”.
What is reality? I guess it’s whatever we want it to be or mean.
Art is not reality. Art can be anything, including reality.
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Pl is a raw converter. Programs like photoshop are called ‘image manipulation programs’.
The converter delivers the image, other programs do the manipulation. Boarders are not strict.
Good link to Bourke.
George