I'm going to post this suggestion here rather than in the comment section of the image I just saw, because it applies to everyone. We all have to realize that taking a picture of a beautiful thing is not art. The beautiful thing might be art, but our photo of it is not. If you go to see the pyramids, please don't throw your camera in the air, then upload the photo you got with the camera tilted and blurred - just because there happens to be a pyramid in the photo.

Likewise with wildlife. Shooting a photo of a tiger isn't art unless you compose the photo well and use the appropriate technical methods to achieve an effect. As an example of well-made wildlife art I will refer you to egggray's work. Notice the clarity, the composition, and the use of a wide aperture to isolate the subject in space. In the past I've been guilty of this, so I'm not going to condemn people, but since I realized this my work has changed, and I feel that it's something we all could benefit from knowing.

Cheers to that regmar, I am struggling with the same thing myself, constantly reminding myself to think about what I am doing when I shoot something that's already beautiful.

Same for Kodo34’s works.
They are examples for all of us...

Excellent example, Pierre. Notice the thin plane of focus in this image where you can see only the eyes and the thin front of the face. Even the ears are out of focus, and the background is an indistinct blur. This is a fine use of a narrow depth of field created by the use of a wide aperture.

Yes. Portraits are maybe the most difficult photos. I really like this one. It would be nicer yet with a more narrow DoF.
That's possible with professional lenses opening at f/2,8...

When doctoring photos, would you say it is a cheap technique to boost the contrast/saturation in order to give the photo "brighter" colors?

Nope. I say do it, but be aware that as you boost contrast beyond about 25% the image gets noticeably more grainy.

Thank you regmar, it annoys me as well when people go wild over a photo of somebody's cat taken by accidently stepping on their camera phone.

Hey All,
I would like to note all techniques used to achieve a certain effect can be legitimate,
For DoF, I use apertures from f1.4 to f2.8 regularly for portraits, but when shooting in studio conditions, it might be better to incorporate the background, as such lots of those images will be taken with apertures from f5.6 or up, same counts for macro- photography, (no interesting background~wide aperture, interesting background at high magnification (small distance)~small aperture,

As for contrast/saturation, it all depends on the parts of the image you want to stress, though I tend to reduce saturation on skin considerably,
I do play with cuves on each image to achieve a specific result,
I also advise to shoot RAW at all times to have much greater control over all those settings that would otherwise be lost forever,

Knowing all sort of techniques is one thing, knowing how to switch between those in different situations is the more important one IMO,

Great examples above, it definitely helps checking them out,

Thanks
Kindest regards
Tim