Excepting slide photos. No real adjustment once taken (a more difficult medium than negative film which you can adjust a little when printing)

You’re right about Ansel Adams. He “dodged and burned” extensively (lightened and darkened areas when printing.) Photoshop kept the dodge and burn names on some tools for a while.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=IoCtni-WWVs

When we printed for our college paper we had a dial that could adjust the printed contrast a bit of our black and white “multigrade” paper (it added red light). People would mess with the processing to get different results too (cold/ sepia toned). It was hard to get exactly what you wanted and I kind of see why digital took over.

>Excepting slide photos. No real adjustment once taken (a more difficult medium than negative film which you can adjust a little when printing)

One might argue that there, many of the processing choices are being made by the film manufacturer, in the sensitizing dyes being used, etc.

I found one way to "adjust" slide photos: I accidentally processed a (color) roll of mine using C-41. The result was surprisingly not terrible.