Well, I had a blast this month, trying out different processing options. You only saw part of my attempts; rejecting ones that ranged from ugly to bizarre. I tried a number of different free software packages - FastStone, all the NIK packages, Windows' Photos, Photo Gallery, and also used RawTherapee for the first time. Plus the not-free PSE and Photoshop CC. Until a year ago, I tended to use only Windows' Photo Gallery to process photos, and it's been a fun journey.
Health warning
Even with a simple package like Photo Gallery, I've always done quite a lot of pp. Mainly because the lenses I like to use are old and eccentric. Many of my favourite bokeh rendering lenses produce unprocessed image quality that is not very appealing to a digital-era audience (including myself); low contrast, creamy or muddy colours (depending on lens), edge softness etc. I totally agree with @ Savoche that people can be too obsessed with digital perfection and edge-to-edge sharpness. But some old lenses really do lack contrast for most tastes, and one needs to do the pp to bring out the best of the lens.
Sometimes my pp'ing has caused problems for others. People have purchased lenses they've seen me use and have expected the images to look like the way I've presented them. I should really put a health warning on the level of processing required. Someone (not part of this forum) wrote to me recently criticising me for making an old/rare/expensive lens look much better than it is on digital cameras, because of the way I'd processed the images. They'd purchased the lens and were very disappointed in the results. The funny thing is - to me these criticisms are real complements!
Successes and failures
I quickly became enamored with vignettes. Before this September, I'd hardly done any vignetting. By the end of the month I was vignetting everything in sight, lighter, darker, sometimes both. And having a great time. Especially after discovering the joys of Color Efex's lighten and darken controls, and the ability to set the highlight spots. Two of the most vignetted photos were Explored, so that's a success story of sorts.
Other valuable discoveries included Color Efex Pro's detail extractor, the high structure settings in Silver Efex, and the soft bokeh settings in Analog Efex. And perhaps the most important of all - Dfine 2. Hashing around my images often resulted in a lot of background noise and Dfine 2 does a good job reducing noise. All these options give us new ways of looking at our photos.
My one big failure was producing a pencil sketch-type image. I learned the technique on Photoshop, but just couldn't take a photo that suited a sketch, despite numerous attempts. Perhaps a human portrait would have been the best subject. If anyone is interested in producing pencil sketches on Photoshop, this video tutorial is a good one.
Turn a photo into a pencil sketch in Photoshop tutorial - PhotoshopCAFE Thanks
Many thanks to everyone who posted such inspiring photos, and fave'd and commented on my photos. @ pepperberry farm..interesting/sorry to read elsewhere why your comments are restricted.
Finally, yesterday's Helios 40 lens shot was Explored, coming in at #25. I've never been this high before. (And I went to a
very liberal college). It has quickly smashed my record for numbers of views. Sadly I'm going to have to sit out October's challenge, so I wish you all the best.