I gave this discussion some thought this morning. Basically the argument boils down to "it's not an old picture, it's modern, it's been post-processed in Photoshop, recently. What you're reacting to is a modern photograph" Correct me if I'm mistaken.

If that is the case, I still disagree. I'll bring the old saw from Ansel Adams that the negative is the score, and the print is the performance. He reprinted some of his most famous photographs throughout his lifetime, and some of these prints are arguably better than others. My point being, that since Prokudin-Gorksy isn't around to give us his performance, others have stepped up and created something they feel is analogous to the actual experience and perhaps amped it up a bit for our color-weary eyes.

There is no way for us to experience these images in the original without the three lens projector Prokudin-Gorsky used. With any method, you can claim that the colors and presentation are an artifact of the production process. If I see a beautiful image, sometimes it's apparent that Kodachrome or Velvia had been chosen specifically because of the way they enhance color or saturation. Would we even be having this discussion in these images had been captured on Kodachrome?

I have some idea of what is possible in Photoshop, and I can say with certainty that these images don't "reek" of Photoshop in the same way that those on the news stand do, with their plastic women and too-white teeth. What has been done is the most rudimentary work necessary to render both an image which is both colorful and complete by proper registration of the layers and by some manipulation of the contrast and saturation. I think that the technicians who put these images together have respected the work and the original intent of the artist (as far as I can suppose it), and have breathed new life into this artifact. What they have done is less invasive and less manipulative than the restoration of the Last Supper.

What puzzles me is this purism. This sense that Photoshop is so dominant over our visual senses that we cannot see past it and make statements about the work itself. That it has to be Photoshop that we find colorful, interesting, or worthy of note.

Not all viewers are equally naive. Some find tone-mapped HDR obtrusive, and the halos, contrast inversion and lack of shadows physically sickening. Some look at HDR and say gee wiz. I think readers on this site deserve more credit by default than the second category.

What I really want to know, is a suggest for fixing this alleged problem, of these images looking like Photoshop. What is the way to experience these images without that obtrusive technical monster in the way? What is the pure experience without some monkey at the keyboard interposing their vision on the work? How can I find myself enamored with the thing in itself, rather than a modern process or technique. Where is the original artwork, and how do you suggest I experience it?

As an aside, I'm very intrigued by your description of Gursky's photo being full of mind-bending and subtle tricks. What is unnatural about the space? I see what looks like compression, possibly by the use of a long lens. The lake should not be sunlit without the ground before and after being sunlit, unless there are some particularly rectangular clouds overhead. Some items have been cloned out, but I haven't been to the site or seen photographs of it to know what. Essentially, what is the visual signature that is present in this photo by Gurksy that is present in the Prokudin-Gorksy photos? I'm just not seeing it. I'd love to see a mockup in Photoshop that would simulate how you think the Prokudin-Gorsky images should look, or does the mere use of Photoshop somehow make it impossible to create an approximation of the ideal look of this work.