Photoshop: Good or Bad?

So, dear readers, do you have any strong feelings about altering images, digitally, on the computer? Or are you a photography purist, preferring that the image, as taken by the camera, be the final one?

I like altering my images on the computer. Which is why I desperately want to bone up on my [currently non-existent] photoshop skills. 

Here is the Straight Out Of the Camera (SOOC) image :

And the modified version:

What do you think? Is this cheating?