Do you manipulate (or alter / Photoshop / mess with / fool with…) your photos? 

Short answer: YES!

Long answer:  My goal in photography is to produce an image that people will be proud to hang on their wall.  I start with a subject that I find interesting and often, but not necessarily, beautiful.  I look for elements that enhance or detract from the scene and for a unique perspective, then place the camera where I find the best sum of factors.  Then shutter speed and aperture are selected to smooth the flow of water or capture droplets in mid flight or limit focus to the subject while blurring distractions.  All of these decisions are made to enhance the “art” of the photo, not to produce an "accurate" documentary of the scene.

The enhancements continue once the image reaches my computer.  I look for ways to make it better communicate the experience of being at the scene.  Local and global adjustments to exposure, color saturation and selected blurring are all darkroom techniques that migrated to digital.  Some techniques, such as cloning out small unwanted elements, are unique to digital.  I use this when I missed or couldn’t remove something, such as a piece of trash, from the scene.

From the time I first start thinking about a photograph through the selection of the mat and frame, my aim is to portray the subject faithfully (but not verbatim), and as artistically as possible.