which version, if you don't mind me asking?
Which leads me on to.................
Well those that are anti it are living in a dream world of perfection to be honest, for the following reasons
Digital Photography at the high end is actually designed for manipulation, cameras are designed in many instances to under expose slightly, many images have to be manipulated to get the true picture you shot in the first place
I also don't see the difference between adding a graduated filter in front of the lens and doing it in an editing programme such as photoshop, neither is a true reflection of the scene in front of the camera.
Neither Cameras nor film can truely represent the full gamut of colours visible to the naked eye in one shot, the sensor // film that can do this either doesnt exist or is so prohibitively expensive it isnt economic t produce one. Film has a wider gamut but its still nowhere near the range of the human eye
Even in the days of film there has always been "manipulation" in the dark room, dodging and burning areas, using the "incorrect: chemicals to produce color shifts
Black & White digital should never be shot in B&W for instance, it should be shot in color and converted post capture, you lose to much info from the image shooting in B&W
Manipulation has always taken place, the purist argument is utter tripe and in this day and age is usually the argument of the old dog that won't learn new tricks
Take the wave photo above as an example, the first one can be considered to be the "pure" photo, even though it was shot in color, converted to mono and had the levels changed. The second image has merely been toned and had a further levels enhancement on the wave to add more drama to the scene. Which is best - you decide, I prefer the second one and the interesting thing is, I've done nothing a traditional film photographer wouldn't have done, its just the equivalent of burning in the wave in the dark room