With the age of digital photography, I'm betting there are a lot of photographers that create things that actually never existed.  In fact, I know there are, because I have done the same myself.  However, in some cases, it's just to create a better image or a more creative image - not necessarily to deceive the viewer of the photo.  This particular picture is of an old home at Cracker Country - circa 1890 time period (somewhere around this time).  My initial photo was taken a bit later in the morning than I would prefer, but the hours it is open doesn't allow for doing early morning or late afternoon photography.  Here's the original picture taken in my camera with the "RAW" format (so the camera did no processing, just captured the image).
 

Using software, my initial thoughts are to enhance the photo and make it have more color and detail.  I also created some 'dark areas' on the patio eliminating details there (maybe that's a good idea, maybe not but does show that you have options). The live oak tree branch is greener, more vibrant like the tree actually is in real life.
 

Now moving away from the 'realism' and into the artistic side of what can be done with a photo.  If this photo was given to 10 different people, you would get 10 different photos.  Everyone has ideas on what they will do with a given photo or scene.  This is two examples of what I did but is not the limit of what one can do - that is up to the imagination of the person doing post processing on the photo.
 

This first version turns the photo black and white and adds a lot of grid and detail to the building.
 

Now after removing all the color, let's add a little bit back into it and make it potentially more interesting to the viewer (remembering that this is now 'art' and not just a photograph of something that exists somewhere in the world).
 

That ends the experimentation of this house for now, but additional ideas will come to mind and perhaps be implemented in this photo in the future...