Do you lighten or darken your images in post to meet some ideal overall illumination

[Clix Pix]

All clients and organisations are not equal...it varies, but if what you are doing satisfies yours and your client needs "good on ya"

The other consideration which has not been raised in this theme string is at what point does the shot and processed image
become art rather than accurate photographic reproduction...????

The collision and integration between photographic post processing and AI alternate reality, it seems, is nearer than we thought........

IMHO an image presented to the world which represents the exact scene which was observed and photographed by the photographer is a photograph. An image in which the photographer or someone else has switched skies or heads, maybe added in elements which were not at all present in the actual scene or puts two entirely different images together to create one single presentation is no longer truly a photograph; it is digital art. That's fine, as long as it is accurately identified as being what it is and not misrepresented. There's plenty of room in the art world for everything and various expressions of creativity......

 

[Landshark99]

IMHO an image presented to the world which represents the exact scene which was observed and photographed by the photographer is a photograph. An image in which the photographer or someone else has switched skies or heads, maybe added in elements which were not at all present in the actual scene or puts two entirely different images together to create one single presentation is no longer truly a photograph; it is digital art. That's fine, as long as it is accurately identified as being what it is and not misrepresented. There's plenty of room in the art world for everything and various expressions of creativity......

So by this definition adding lights or a reflector to open up the shadows, or shooting wide open with very limited depth of field would be altering the scene as observed, therefore not a photograph but art.
It seems that we seem to have forgotten that back in the glory days of film, images were altered in the darkroom, with burning, dodging, different papers, developers, solarization, multiple printing, filters etc. I am not sure why we care about how the image was created unless one is in some competition which has some arbitrary rules, even then does it really matter. A photograph is nothing more than a two dimensional representation of any observed moment. We all see through different eyes, interpret that observation with unique brains, I may not be fond of over manipulated images, but we all express ourselves in our own way, so if the image was created with a camera in some way it is a photographic piece of art to me.

 

[Clix Pix]

Photographer Admits That Viral Snow Leopard 'Photos' Are Fake

She's denied all wrongdoing.

petapixel.com

 

[Landshark99]

This is way over the top,not only did she lie about their creation, she stole the leopard images from somebody else. I think is a very different story than what we have been talking about, big difference from lies and theft to manipulating one's image honestly.
Side note: I shot some images of snow leopards years ago, just a few feet from my lens, only difference was mine were in Las Vegas at Siegfried and Roy's house, not Nepal.