I was having a discussion the other day about my PP techniques and it was suggested that what I'm doing is actually digitally 'painting' over my original by creating and blending layers, pushing colours etc. I don't 'change the light,' move trees about or add skies etc, what you see is what I experienced, but this may be different to what was optically captured on film or sensor.
Haven't a problem with that, but was wondering if there was an established point at which a photographic processing session officially turns into a digital painting, in a similar way to how some painters photograph the scene and then project the slide onto a canvas.
Many thanks for your thoughts.
When your photographs starts to look like a pretty good photorealistic painting, you're there!
I judge myself at that point when I have adjusted the tonality of the image in a way that exceeds the normal range of a photograph, as by bringing out details in shadows and highlights that transcends the "normal" tonality of a unprocessed photograph. ie...when every part of the photograph reveals the amount of information the eye perceives when it looks at only that area in the original scene. Subtle HDR and Tufuse and Enfuse techniques are helpful in this regard.
