No one is saying otherwise. I'm sorry, I don't know what your point is.

Not outright saying it (and not you, your comment was just a place to hang another comment off) but parent comments in this chain saying "people already fall for it" about computer adjusted photos and software might adjust how "red the flowers are" or how "green the grass is", and the parent comment saying "you can turn all this off and get RAWs" - as if they believe there is some objective truth which RAWs capture and which cameras used to show that they now don't show because of software post-processing.

My point is that there never has been, cameras have always let you adjust the shot - including "how red the flowers are" by changing light source, film type, shadows, which contrasting other colours are nearby, etc.

It's like airbrushing and similar techniques, except automated. It's better than life (face-smoothing filters, eye-enhancing filters, whitening filters, HDR that blows the colors to make up for the tiny sensor and minuscule optics, major sharpening artifacts, smoothing texture, the list goes on and on)

With old-school photo processing--yes, in a darkroom--you could achieve unrealistic results. But it was a choice. That's not what you got when you sent your negatives to the Costco to get printed. That's akin to the results I get when I use my camera, especially when looking at jpgs straight-out-of-the-camera.

In contrast, we get modern cellphones doing incredible processing to almost arbitrarily replace content with what some algorithm feels you'll like better, whether or not it resembles reality.

I lament that it usually resembles beginner photographer work, where they've just discovered HDR tone-mapping, local contrast, global contrast, saturation, sharpening, and smoothing filters, and promptly slam every single one of them to the stops. I did it, and now I recognize it when I see it in cellphone pics my friends send me via imessage.

Been there, done that. I recognize the stigmata of saturation slammed to the stops and excessive use of HDR and local contrast.

The default is excessive editing now, probably because it helps cover up limitations of tiny sensors and small optics.