This is one of those dilemmas: is the image enhancement justified or not..? When I finished this image, I was disturbed by the dirt speckles in the water. So I cloned them away in the second image. The water looked much cleaner now, but was it really an enhancement? It seems as if the image has lost some of its depth by cloning out the speckles completely. So I duplicated the enhanced image layer over the original one and made it 60% transparent... that's the third image; a compromise... Does this ring a bell..? ;o)) Any ideas on what is the best solution here? PS: I left the images big enough to see the difference...

Personally, I like the second one, the specks were distracting more then adding any depth, IMHO!

I agree with bentchick.

Looks a lot cleaner and pro:)

Michael.

me too

yeah - prefer it without the specks, they are fairly distracting in the original...

Thanks, that's four out of four... a clear vote. It was actually the first time I felt the need to do such enhancement, that's why I asked. So, I wonder if the purists among us would call this 'image manipulation'... or is this just retouching, or enhancement, or how would you call it..?

I call that retouching when you make a correction of color, contrast and something more....

Manipulation and when you deform something.... (it's my opinion)

Nothing wrong with losing some of the nasty little things floaing around. I do it, the odd time when they  look distracting.... and I am sure any purist would because they would want it looking cleaner. Your leaned mage looks  much nicer.
Still has depth.

Retouching for sure. THIS is image manipulation. 6 out of 6.