[branphlake]

Your original reply to my suggestions (which you did solicit by posting in the "critique" section) made it sound like you had a near total aversion to postprocessing, thus our replies supporting some post processing as an often necessary component of the digital workflow. Now you admit that you use Lightroom (an image editing program right?) to adjust your colors to be more "real life" Sounds like post processing to me. Neither Gary or I advocated pell mell image alteration or manipulation. In fact, I agree with you that many photographers go way overboard and use certain processes to death. However, any technique is valid if it's use supports the image being processed or helps to realize the vision of the artist.

As for the selective desaturation effect being applied to "immature photos" I could make the same claim about using Lightroom to "bring the colors from "real life" back." Neither is a valid argument.

Mike

I highly disagree. My point was that, if we were all still shooting Kodachrome 64, there's not much more to be desired after developing. When shooting on the k10, I often find that I don't get enough "black" in my blacks and, truthfully, that's my biggest adjustment. Lightroom is not only a great tool for making "artistic" images, but it's a safe and easy way to organize all of my photos, compare them to one another and make light adjustments.

Again, here's the deal: I, personally, cannot stand selective color, super high contrast, false vignetting, etc etc etc on photographs that aren't interesting in the first place. That's all I am saying.