I tend to think in terms of "digital photographs" and "digital art."
To me, a "digital photograph" is something that the photographer shoots and then sits down at the computer and edits very lightly, with minimal adjustments needed (which they are if the image has been shot in RAW, as Molly has explained above). The rules around some types of photography -- forensic photography and photojournalism -- out of necessity are quite strict and require that an image not be altered at all, but in other kinds of photography that is not the case. Wildlife photographers usually do minimal post-processing and editing, and ditto for landscape photographers.
Someone can shoot a scene and then in the editing phase clone out an offending twig or branch or an object on the ground which wasn't noticed at the time of shooting. Ideally the photographer positions himself and the camera so that everything is perfectly composed but sometimes that just can't happen. There are situations where the scene is otherwise fine, but offending object(s) cannot be physically reached in order to be removed at the time of shooting.
An example of that: the other day in editing one of my shots of geese on the ice, I did a bit of judicious cloning-out of the turds that these messy birds had so generously been dropping everywhere on the ice -- those particular "souvenirs" just did not add anything attractive to the overall image and were visually distracting, so away they went!
In shooting birds, especially a small one in a tree, sometimes the photographer just couldn't get close enough and so will need to crop the image a bit to make the bird more prominent in the scene. Some birds have dark eyes and dark faces, and at times, especially if there are no catchlights in the eyes, a photographer will make an adjustment during editing by raising the shadows a bit, separating the eye more clearly from the face.
In shooting portraiture, sometimes the photographer will use retouching tools to gently, lightly, delicately "smooth" the skin or "brighten" the eyes and teeth, while still not changing the overall essence and appearance of the individual. Perhaps there is also the need to smooth out wrinkles in fabric or clone out a spot somewhere.
However, removing moles, freckles or other distinctive characteristics of a subject or "slimming" someone down or enhancing other areas with "airbrushing" is really going beyond the norm in retouching, and would be unacceptably altering the subject too much.
Someone can produce artistic looking images while still doing minimal editing during post-processing. Much of that depends on the subject -- flowers and foliage often lend themselves to artistic imagery, and so do some abstracts. It's more about the lens used, the light and surrounding environment and the photographer's approach to the subject. "Fast" lenses (f/0.95, f/1.0, f/1.2, f/1.4, f/1.8) and macro lenses lend themselves well to this type of endeavor, particularly because of the very shallow DOF.
Props are occasionally used in macro and tabletop work. Sometimes the artist will add something such as a few strategically-placed water drops to enhance the overall scene, or use a mirror or highly-reflective surface underneath the subject. Sometimes a sole water drop itself will become the subject, as they are highly reflective, too, and that can be a fun project. (Usually a mixture of water and glycerin is used when shooting that kind of image so that the "water drop" sticks around long enough for the photo to be created!) Usually the photographer's goal in choosing such a lens is to create a specific effect involving light, colors, shapes and softly blurred background.
Moving on to "Digital Art,".... It in my opinion, intentionally goes above and beyond the norm in post-processing, and includes use of filters, devices to create special effects, total removal of elements of the scene and addition of other elements to the scene (swapping in one sky for another, for instance). The editing app Luminar has a sky-swapping feature (which I've never used) and I think a few other programs do as well.
Composites, while intended to be interesting and usually do result in creating the effect desired by the artist, are another example of this going to extremes, and again are something I consider "digital art." Setting an animal, person or object in a scene in which it never was at all, on a wholly different background or with extra elements in the scene, suggests strongly that an image is a composite. The image may appear to be realistic or clearly unrealistic, but in either case while whatever was initially shot merely forms the base of the final creation, while much was done in the editing/retouching process to create an illusion.
