Being a photographer for more than 40 years, professionally and shooting just for fun, I have heard this discussion many times. Even back in the film days they would burn and dodge images to get them to look the way they wanted. One of the issues with cruising is sometimes the weather and time of day is not what you want, so you need to make what you can from the image you get. While I try to get the best image I can in camera, I will use Photoshop or Lightroom to make changes and try to enhance the image best I can.
Just found this forum, looking forward to hearing more from other cruising photographers.