The old habit of reaching to “increase contrast”[0] as a means of making an image more attractive exists in large part because 1) the dynamic range of modern display media is so tiny compared to the dynamic range of camera sensors and our eyes[1], and 2) the images most people typically work with are often recorded in that same tiny dynamic range.
If you work with raw photography, you will find that, as with audio, the dynamic range is substantially wider than the comfortable range of the available media: your job is, in fact, to compress that range into the tiny display space while strategically attenuating and accentuating various components—just like with raw audio, much more goes into it than merely compression, but fundamentally the approaches are much alike.
[0] Which actually does much more than that—the process is far from simply making the high values higher and low values lower.
[1] Though “dynamic range” is much less of a useful concept when applied to eyes—as with sound, we perceive light in temporal context.
If you work with raw photography, you will find that, as with audio, the dynamic range is substantially wider than the comfortable range of the available media: your job is, in fact, to compress that range into the tiny display space while strategically attenuating and accentuating various components—just like with raw audio, much more goes into it than merely compression, but fundamentally the approaches are much alike.
[0] Which actually does much more than that—the process is far from simply making the high values higher and low values lower.
[1] Though “dynamic range” is much less of a useful concept when applied to eyes—as with sound, we perceive light in temporal context.