@Chris_Calohan Chris, I appreciate your point of view but I disagree on several of your points. Firstly, imo, a camera will never “see” and "capture " the scene in front of us as accurately as our God-given vision, so the image from the camera needs some help sometimes. An example is some of my images from under the very dark canopy of Costa Rica. I could see the bird perfectly well with my eyes, but the camera needed an ISO of > 12,000 which rendered the noise almost impossible. Running it through DxO Pure Raw - which I think a great many of us use - salvaged it. To me, this is no different than using the manual NR and sharpening of the older programs, like Topaz.
Also, the sensor could not correctly determine the bright reds, so they had to be de-saturated. I have no problem with manually matching the saturation to the image my eyes saw, irrespective of what the camera’s sensor produced. I see no problem with utilizing both the new and continually-improving cameras, as well as the upgraded software.
I respect that you might have just pitched all those images.
As far as Dave’s 2 images on which I suggested using DxO Pure Raw , both the merlin and the hawk were very fine images. Excellent poses, nice perches, perfect head turn, clean BG. The ONLY problem was the processing, for reasons not entirely known. I suggested using the latest AI software to define the feathers and perch, rather than the Topaz Dave used. One program instead of another. I don’t see this as a horrible thing. DAVE is the photographer who got these exceptional images. The processing did not become the photo.
You state that you’re afraid to “trust” any image on the web, fearing they are all manipulated to a huge degree. Just look at any of the major photo award sites then, National or International. You can “trust” any of them; All accept absolutely NO additions or deletions, and they carefully examine all RAW files of submitted images. before any awards are made.
I think this all comes down to personal taste and choices, as long as any major alterations are disclosed.
I think I’ll move this to the “Discussions”, as I’m very interested in learning the perspective of others.