Using a computer to manipulate the way you see a photographic image isn't any less 'honest' than playing around with lights and chemicals in a darkroom. It's just quicker and cheaper (once you have paid the price for a high-resolution scan, bought your computer, and perhaps bought some pricey software). 

The serious stuff costs real money, but it is surprising what you can do with a simple PC and Windows. (You can probably do more with a basic Apple system, but I can't vouch for that - yet). Let's take a look at a couple of pictures as they were taken:

This light is taller than me. It is made from giant seed pods, each lit by a small flood set inside it, partly hidden by a cluster of dried flowers. Click on the thumbnail to see an enlarged original. Now click here to see it as if painted on textured board.

This little gazania, photographed by the last of the evening sunlight using the closeup mode of a zoom lens, is promising, but not exactly art. Click on the thumbnail to enlarge it.  Now click here to see the effect of cropping an enlarged picture tightly and rotating just a few degrees. Better?  Now for something completely different. This sketch was produced in MS Photo Editor - the tool Windows uses to view images in photographic formats such as .TIF and .JPG. All I had to do was select EDGE/THICK and click the mouse button.

I have shown low-resolution pictures here, so that they fit on your screen and download in a reasonable time. The original scans of both slides are about 5,300 x 3,400 pixels, which will produce beautiful prints at A3 size, and even make fairly good posters. 

Have fun.

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This is a Dorling Kindersley book, and Tom is Senior Lecturer in Photographic Practice at the University of Westminster, London.