It's a proper hot potato this one.

Editing is seen as part of digital photography. But I would say as long as you don't introduce things that are not there and don't remove too much "debris" from the shots, then thats ok. Lots of the things done in the digital darkroom have been done for years in film labs anyhow, it's just the fact that more people are able to edit than before. I'm all for having tweaks and cloning some bits and bobs out. But some people do take things too far which I don't agree with, by this I mean introducing things that were never there, some people think it's ok to drop a better whole sky into a picture, to replace dull ones, thats wrong, use the time honoured ways, like grad filters, polarisers and good camera craft. At the end of the day, editing is no replacement for good composition, camera craft and above all patience.

With regards the editing to look like a better spec camera. Cheaper camera's are every bit as good within reason, if you want to display pictures up to A4 and maybe pushing it to A3, or just put them on the web, then thats fine. More expensive set ups have better sensors and pixel range, meaning you can blow them up further and have much less pixelation. My camera ( a D300) for instance is what is termed a "Prosumer" or "Semi Pro" standard, so while it's of better build quality and has better features / sensor than some thing like a D90, it is way under what can be achieved on a D3, which is the Nikon Pro set up.

So to answer the second question, yes you can, but only on a small size or online. But going back to the earlier stuff I said, it doesn't matter what shiny bit of kit you have, if you are not able to use it correctly.

The be all and end all with photography is it should be fun, if it doesn't give you pleasure then its not worth spending anything on at all. It is a passion for me, that I wish I had the time to really do, but I don't. Some day maybe