I learned my analog tricks in high school and college.

The reason you rented that dark room, or joined and remained in the photo club was because we couldn't afford the $$$ to purchase and equip one. Photoshop et al for $200 or less is one reason that there are many times more digitally manipulated photos now than there were then. As you pointed out, "you could". The fact is, when compared with now, very few did.

As to the time it took to learn how to do the analog tricks, how many minutes did it take for you to learn how to remove objects from, and add objects to analog photos? Here is a 9-minute Photoshop tutorial to do just that. The ease with which one can digitally manipulate photographs is the other reason that there are orders of magnitude more revised/touched up/altered photographs now than there was in the past.

How did you add neon stripes to your analog photos? Here's a 1:22 Photoshop tutorial.

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Eudaimonia