Reply #12: That was why I suggested...

[regnaD kciN]

...that the passage in the rules allowed post-processing that helped "capture the image in front of the photographer, not create a new scene that was never there" (or a similar sentiment -- I don't remember exactly how I phrased it). Typically, exposure blends are of photos taken, at most, a few seconds apart. The goal is to make sure that as little about the image has changed as possible!

BTW, when it comes to adding elements to images, although I'm not in favor of it for most contests, I should note that it is scarcely a new phenomenon of the "digital darkroom." Performing in-camera double-exposures, or sandwiching two transparency images in one slide mount, is as old as the hills -- most often to add a moon to the sky, but sometimes to add backgrounds. Noted nature photographer and photo author Tim Fitzharris has an example of adding a canyon landscape behind a close-up shot of a silhouetted mountain lion in one of his earliest books, back in the mid-'80s, and I seem to recall him also adding flying birds to the sky in an image from another one of his pre-digital books. Whether one approves of such techniques, they certainly aren't newfangled Photoshop manipulations never used by photographers in the "good old days."