Quote Originally Posted by Medley
This entire thread is a good example of why I prefer the term "digital image". To me, it's just less ambiguous. There are probably a lot of people on this forum who aren't going to like what I'm about to say, but to me if you're using film and darkroom techniques, the result is a photograph. If you're using a dslr, the result is a digital image. The camera is taking light reflected off of the sensor and converting it into an electronic representation of what was reflected. How can that not be considered a digital image?

The trouble here is that "digital image" is a term with a very wide definition. Anything created with Photoshop (or any other imaging software) is also, by definition, a digital image. The only difference is in the source of the image.

This is just my personal view of things. I'm not trying to start any wars here. It's just that after considering the question for some time, this is the most logical place I could find to draw the line.
People always hate it when I say this but the "film+darkroom is The Last Word in Photography" is what I call Amish Photography. You are arbitrarily choosing one era of photography and freezing it in time as being "the last of photography" while trying to denigrate whatever comes afterwards with vague labels.

Photography is "writing with light." A digital sensor is, IMHO, more "writing with light" than film photography ever was. There is nothing magical about the media the image is recorded on. There is nothing magical about using toxic chemicals. There is nothing magical about doing things the hard way. Film and darkroom has no more and no less relationship to reality than digital does. Most photography is about the final image, the story it tells, the emotions it creates. How you get there is totally irrelevent.