There are absolutely different levels of image editing. Color correction, cropping, scale, and rotation are basic enough that I would say they don’t even count as alterations. They’re just correcting what the camera didn’t, and often available in the camera’s built in software. (Fun fact, what the sensor sees is not what it presents you in a jpeg.) Then there are more deceptive levels of editing, like removing or adding objects, altering someone’s appearance, swapping faces from different shots. Those are definitely image alterations, and what most people mean when they say an image is “photoshopped” (and you know that, don’t lie). Then there’s AI, where you’re just generating new information to put into the image. That’s extreme image alteration.

These all can be done with or without any sort of nefarious intent.