Keeping digital photography...a photography.

[Luke345678]

I like having a more real feeling to it but I don't think you should be disqualified for something like photoshopping. As long as everyone has the same right to use photoshop they should be able to use it how ever they please. Thats just my personal opinion, please no hate!

 

[KmH]

That the judges didn't detect the violation of their category submission rules prior to giving the awards seems to be the base issue.

Frankly, it makes the judges look bad, not the image that was submitted.

It seems pretty obvious that quite a bit of image editing was likely done to the award winning photo.
Jeez! If the allow HDR, "the integrity of the subject must be maintained and the making of physical changes to the landscape is not permitted" seems a useless restriction.