Why simpledit.xyz ?
As in language, memories and experiences, communication is never one hundred percent accurate, our perception of reality is partial and biased (list of cognitive biases). Nevertheless, we can pass on our visual memories, as messages and communicate accurately on specific ideas. This is what I am aiming to help you with post-processing your photographs.
Take an object and use different light sources from different angles, intensity, and even color temperature: the perceived color of the object will change. That is to say, photo post-processing in some cases can be compared to the work of a photographer using umbrellas and flashes, because in post-process you can achieve strong alterations in lighting, coloring and even the amount of details.
In the old days, an original film photograph could only be used once and involved a very long and tedious development process requiring a dark room and special equipment. Nowadays electronic sensors can capture light in a comparable way, for a virtually unlimited number of times, and the development process has been replaced by post-processing software which gives more room to quick and powerful photo editing.
Human visual perceptions
Human perception of reality is a subjective matter. Indeed, the human vision processing system is so complex (How the Retina Works) that some people, including me, sometimes are able to report slight tint differences between the left and right eyes (Is variation in color perception from eye to eye is normal ?).
Also, the perception of color, while generally similar, varies from person to person. The most obvious case for this is called color blindness (List of cognitive biases).
The above illustration from 1895 shows the US flag as it seen by those with normal vision, and also those with different types of color blindness (E. W. Scripture - Thinking, Feeling, Doing (frontispiece))
(https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_blindness#/media/File:US_Flag_color_blind.png)
Our perception of reality
Can you see all white dots at the same time ? Or are they transforming into black dots as you look around the picture ?
Your eyes cannot be trusted
If you weren’t convinced yet, our eyes are imperfect by design, our vision of reality is partial and flawed by the nature of our retina. In the case of the above image, our limited peripheral vision coupled with the fact that our brain doesn’t like missing information, tricks us into thinking white dots are moving and fills the void with black dots. If you zoomed in you would see white dots at each intersection in the above image.
In this other example, the "Café wall" is another famous optical illusion where parallel lines are seen as sloped:
(https://www.sciencealert.com/10-viral-optical-illusions-broke-the-internet-cognition-perception)
Then, how can you tell if an image is the “true” representation of a captured moment ? In short, my ideal answer is: it is never possible to capture a "true" image and a photo is always a subjective representation of reality.
My point here is to argue in favor of photo editing as a possible way to make your photos come closer to your own vision of the photographed subject (note here the root is common with subjective), and if you are an artist, there will be no boundaries to what you can achieve !
Artists such as Luigi Benedicenti, Nathan Walsh and Mike Dargas have mastered the art of painting realistically and others like Sergio Odeith mastered anamorphic illusion.
Also, the process of matte painting (painting over a real video frame) has been used for decades in the cinematographic industry as a way to bring a vision and message to reality. Nowadays, artists are using photo editing software to create fantastic art and fictional static backgrounds in videos, as well as to appeal to well defined cultural audiences.