It all hinges on what you want from an image, with wildlife/butterfly shots most of us, I guess want a true and accurate representation of the subject, so the key to manipulation in any software has to be knowing when to stop.
Dont forget if we have used a copy or duplicate image,we can always go back and start again, a small adjustment can also be added to, whereas an over adjustment usually means the image is ruined.
One of the most common and obvious faults is oversharpening or poor sharpening technique resulting in halos/jpg artifacts.
I'm afraid Pauls first photoshopped image was IMO oversharpened.
In my opinion, one should only make the changes in photoshop (or other brands, Pete!) that you could make in a darkroom with film.
I disagree with this statement, why stick to rules/restrictions of a bygone system, when with sensible use, we have so much more we can do with digital.
Its probably true that if you have to do more than crop and sharpen, then the image isn't a good one anyway
I disagree with this as well, there are many things other than crop and sharpen, to help an image be more pleasing to the eye, Levels, curves, WB, hue and sat, contast, colour balance, and several other techniques all have a part to play, with carful use.
I'll go as far as to say, all images even ones that look superb to start with need some form of tweaking in computer software, the trick is recognising what is needed and then how to do it.
This doesnt let us off the hook though, we should still be practising good camera technique and getting as much right as possible in camera.
I'd like to know out of interest what software you used?
