Various schools of thought.

Some people feel they are cheating by doing post-processing on the image with a computer. While it is admirable to try and get the best image possible out of the camera, they should also consider that shooting in JPEG mode and modifying color and contrast sliders in the camera means that they are leaving most of the work to the camera’s computer programming. In my opinion, taking images in RAW mode and then processing them using my eyes and a well calibrated screen are best, not images left up to the camera’s algorithms and the quality of in-camera JPEG compression algorithms. To take things even further, some photographers do a lot more processing to their images that just changing color and exposure. While the resulting image is certainly not the same work it was originally, it still should be considered art on its own.