Winning 2012 National Geographic Pro Photo Contest with Fujifilm X-Pro1 Locked

No, that absolutely would not have been OK, but if you're really equating what he did with what you just suggested (and given the level of vitriol you've been spewing), I have to wonder if you're an unhealthily angry person.

What you just said and what he did are equal in the boundaries of the contest rules, and that's totally fine, and NG has done exactly what they should have done in disqualifying him. There aren't many people arguing against that. (I would, at most, argue that NG should consider the original version of his photo.) But you are an autonomous human being who is not constrained to a black-and-white view of things like this, and to paint him with the same "cheat" brush as someone who heavily manipulates a photo is completely ridiculous. In some places, the guy who gets caught with a joint in his pocket might be in just as much legal trouble as the guy caught with 3kg of coke in the back of his truck...but if you think they're equally bad ethically you're insane.