There’s some correctness to this, but I take issue with this line:

In fact photographers going back into the earliest days of photography have been modifying photos with all the tools available to them.

No. The vast vast majority aren’t. More digital photos are being taken now than ever before.

And even for the absolutely miniscule amount of people who do take photos with old-style equipment, they almost never do it exclusively.

On top of that, it doesn’t mean doing it using modern tools is fake either

There are people who do woodworking without power tools. Are those people the only people who are really creating something?