Cartier-Bresson coined the phrase the “decisive moment” when describing his work on the streets of the world, and the term also perfectly describes the artfulness in a beautiful landscape.  Fore it is only at that moment, that 1/2 of a second where the soft glow of sunset kisses the coastal grasses where land and ocean meet; on that day when the storm breaks and the bleak dead sky makes way for large beautiful clouds to fill the horizon and you were there, after hours of hiking or days of hoping or years of waiting, to open the shutter and let your lens take in the scene.

Having a folder full of big fluffy cloud filled skies, warm sunsets or dramatic sunrises cheats the process of fine landscape photography.  You are no longer creating art out of only what’s given to you by mother nature, using your skills and vision to create something beautiful out of a scene others don’t give a second thought.  Instead you’re settling, settling for a mediocre scene that you’ll later take back into Photoshop and create something that isn’t really nature or landscape photography.  
Instead the pieced together image is a collage, and if it’s labeled as such that’s perfectly acceptable and wonderful. However, in this day of digital photography, camera phones and digital darkrooms it is almost assumed that any image with a dynamic sky or bright colors wasn’t made possible by the photographer’s unique vision or mastery of photographic techniques; but instead created in Photoshop, which immediately erases the magic of the moment.  As someone who, like many of you that enjoy photography, has been asked “is it real?” or “how many images is that?” it is very discouraging; and I believe ultimately harmful to photography as a hole. 
When people stop seeing a beautiful moment for what it really is photography starts to lose its impact, both in the fine art realm and in the conservationist efforts many beautiful outdoor photographs help to illustrate.