I know the OP has veered this thread into philosophical questions of 'is it art' and so on, but I want to comment on the original article's main proposition about how much digital manipulation of a photograph is 'acceptable' photographic technique.
I'm sorry to do this, but a lot of categorisation is necessary here.
Without mentioning it in the draft article, Mr Lewin has assumed a very limited scope of photography categorised by him as fine art photography.
So let's categorise photography itself, by purpose, not subject:-
- to produce a fine art photograph
- to produce a digital artwork that includes a camera image or images
- to document what is in front of the lens...for science, for law, for history, for recollection, for cataloguing
I'm happy to put #3 aside as sensibly requiring minimal manipulation other than to clarify the details recorded and make it conform with the way vision works, eg exposure and contrast adjustment, colour adjustment, a modest amount of sharpening and noise reduction, and lifting shadow brightness so one can see what lies there. No-one is trying to make it especially pretty, they are just trying to make sure what was there can be discerned. Record photography. Some of which definitely qualifies as art: just look at great documentary photography. And some has no artistic intent. All good.
Do we need to separate #1 from the artistic part of #3? I think yes, because the 'documentary' standards required of #3 are just too strict for #1, which prioritises appearance rather than depiction. Example: one might easily 'burn out' all the detail in a shadow area in #1, or dodge out highlight areas, in order to communicate the visual side of the art most effectively.
But when we put #3 aside and address #1 (art photographs) and #2 (art using images), those two still need to be distinguished, because although there is nothing wrong at all with #2, I propose that the end result is not categorised as a photograph. It is digital art, pure and simple, specifically that category of digital art that involves the (sometimes quite incidental) use of a digital camera...in which the artist might not even be the photographer.
Without that distinction, Mr Lewin's task becomes deeply philosophical and entangled, but with it, it's quite easy.
Let me give an example of #2, where a photographer produces (perfectly valid and potentially important) art using images, that I say is not a photograph. I could take a photo in northern England under the midday sun, of a few people going about their business in the foreground, with a modest mountain in the background, under a blue sky. (Okay, agreed, I can't be in northern England because it wouldn't have a blue sky, right?
)
Then I replace the sky with something much more dramatic, that I found in a photo taken in Canada, that may or may not have been taken by me. I replace the modest mountain with the Himalayan Alps, and replace all the people with Hollywood stars. I throw in some golden sunbeams at an acute angle from a sunset somewhere. In each case the replacement is an enhancement and looks better (for the purpose) than original. OMG what a great, errr, 'photograph' I, ummm, 'made'.
Then I get even more inspired by PC Power, and replace the sky with an underwater scene, the mountain with a factory, and the people with potato chips. Some of these elements are from photos, and some are actually just paintings. Not telling you. I'm a photographer.
Question: what is this final art object actually a 'photograph' of? And when and where was it taken? Answer: it's not a photograph of anything any more, hence not a photograph, and is #2 (art using images).
Contrastingly, if I cloned out of the original photo, a pole that was growing out of someone's head, but left the rest alone, it's still a photo of northern England under the midday sun, a few people going about their business in the foreground, with a modest mountain in the background, under a blue sky. It's a photograph, with (assumed) artistic merit, so it is #1 (art photograph). IMO if you want to debate the acceptability of cloning out the pole, then you are pushing for #3 (documentary photograph) subset 'with artistic merit'.
I think my proposal is a different way of achieving the same goal as Mr Lewin, to clarify how much manipulation is okay while still calling something a photograph. OTOH I don't think a test of "evoking a sense of reality and authenticity" is sufficient, because it would be very easy to achieve that with a lot of 'sky replacement' and 'sunbeams added' photos, that I say are not photos of any one thing and has crossed the line into #3.
cheers