Photoshop Trickery : What is Reality???

It's a fine line. Even more so now. We live in a world of amazing technology. But at what point do you have to ask the question "Just because I can does that mean I should?" I believe there is a place for all this cool stuff in photography. Photoshop and other items like it allow photographers amazing possibilities. We can take photos and add amazing new life to them. We can bring out all those elements that a camera at times can fail to capture. But at what point are we messing with reality. Above are a few pictures enhanced with something called "photostitch." An amazing way to put multiple pictures together to display the majesty of a landscape. Each of these pictures is actually three pictures stitched together into one picture. I think this is really fantastic as it allows me, the photographer, to show you what I saw as I took the picture. If you sat where I sat, you would have seen this. So what you see is reality. But what about when you replace a part of a picture with something from another picture??? What about when you take a face from one picture and put into onto the face of another picture. Well I suppose it depends on what your purpose is. I have seen some clever things. My head placed on the body of a member of "The Fantastic Four." Really funny. But of course no one would ever really believe I am a member of the Fantastic Four. But what about when you take a face from one picture and use it to replace the face from another picture in an effort to make it look like something that really happened. For example, what if I took a picture with some friends or my wife and in an effort to make it a "great" picture I take the head of one person from one picture and use it to replace the face of that same person on another picture to "create" the perfect picture. Well, I can't say this is wrong, but for me, that's a picture I wouldn't want because it represents a false reality. It is not real because it doesn't truly capture "The Moment." Like I said, if someone wants to do this, that is there business. It is their picture and if it works for them, then fine. But for me, I want what really happened. I want to see what I really saw. I want the moment.

It's a fine line.........