Sometimes, ideal conditions don't exist. Take for instance the photo on the left. It was a glorious day with a blue sky. The sunlight was still soft and the sun was in the right place in the sky. However, the pie's pudding was a bit wet and the graham cracker crust uncooperative. With photo retouching, a fine line exists between a realistic photo and perfection gone too far.  We strive to retouch an image to the point that a realistic photo could have been taken under ideal conditions. To achieve this after-the-fact, we removed the dripping pudding and smoothed out…