an image far different than what the human eye sees

This means surprisingly little. Our eyes "see" something that would probably be very foreign to us; it's our brain makes sense of it all. Have you ever consciously noticed that 15% of your vision is blocked by your nose? Probably not, our brain does a great job of ignoring that. This isn't meant to be an abstract point, it's the way you should think about what is ok in an "accurate" photo and what's not.

I like to think about it in terms of what our brains can process and what they can't. When you see a photo taken with a wide angle less your brains is good at taking cues (like horizons or other straight lines) to make sense of it. Most photographers are ok with minor adjustments that maintain the accuracy of a photo. Again, this is because it doesn't trick our brain. When you totally up the saturation or photoshop different scenes together or take really long exposures, you trick the brain. This can be done artistically, but then the art is your purposeful modification of the scene, not just the photograph itself. You shouldn't play your photo off as some amazing scene you found, you should honestly say "check out this cool piece of art I made".