In photography is it considered "cheating" if you edit your photos?

The only problem with editing is if you try to use it to make a boring snapshot look more interesting than it actually is. In other words, is the effects you added to the picture more interesting to you than the picture itself? If so, then that's not photography anymore.

A good picture should be able to stand by itself with NO editing.

There is nothing wrong with making slight adjustments to the color, contrast, exposure, etc. But if you have to "Photoshop" ALL your pictures just to try to make them look interesting, than that isn't photography anymore.

I see so many people here (mostly kids) who will take a snapshot of their shoes and then "Photoshop" it to death. That still doesn't make it a good picture. It's STILL just a lame snapshot of their shoes, that has been edited to death.

Editing is fine if you do it in moderation and use it to improve your pictures. But if you have to DEPEND on editing to try to make your pictures look more interesting...then maybe photography isn't really your thing.

I suppose this depends on how much you edit them. If you are stealing parts of other peoples photos to include in yours it is cheating. Otherwise no it is not cheating. People have been editing photos since the very beginning of photography. Before Photoshop this was all done in the darkroom but it is no different. The secret is to be able to do it so that it is not obvious what you did. Most photos could use a little touching up. You should not have to spend hours editing them though.

Not even close!

Very few images are ever of such outstanding quality that they need no touch ups. In a way, if you think of it in terms of other forms of art, it's no different than sound editing for music or having several different drafts of a piece of literature.

In fact, it would be highly unusual not to edit and a certain level of editing is expected.

You can do a lot and control a lot with you camera but you can't always control everything the way you would want to. It just isn't possible. In the old days, people simply did their editing in dark rooms using different methods for developing. Today, we have the luxury of software and don't have to deal with those smelly chemicals, lol.

Now, if you edit the photo in an extreme manner, like changing a person's skin color to canary yellow and eyes to black, this does go beyond photography and into a different art from. As far as media law sees it, these sort of things are now considered illustrations.

Good luck and have fun.

No not at all.

If it's a good quality, and REALISTIC edit, then it can further enhance a photo.

It might be "cheating" if you take something that was a real work of nature, and totally manipulate it into something that was not. This is what I mean by 'true realistic.'

It's not cheating at all! In my opinion, knowing how to edit is one of the most important skills in order to be a successful photographer. The trick is to make the picture look natural, as if you had not touched it at all.

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No, I edit my photos all the time.