on maintaining reality

I struggled with the idea of Photoshop for a long time.  I disapproved of photo manipulation because the result didn’t seem as real as the original.  The more I thought about it, though, the more I wondered when exactly the photograph stopped reflecting reality.  When I mess with the white balance?  That doesn’t seem logical, because I use the automatic white balance setting on my camera, because I know I can just change it later.