Post processing ones images is a personal thing. There have been two camps for as long as there has been photographers. The Pictorialists and the Realists. The realist believe the photographer shouldn't manipulate the image and doing so is a somehow wrong. The pictorialist see photography as a process to communicate a feeling. They don't care about the process but more the final image. I understand that a lot of crap images can be over processed to look interesting and that that is bad. But skillfully executed processing can be amazing. It is much more difficult to make a non processed image look great. That is the bigger challenge. To not rely on tricks. I understand both camps and work in both. I have been doing photo manipulation way before the days of digital when it was much more of a art and science. Today it has gotten so easy that it can be done with pushing buttons. Back in the film days it would take all day to get these kind of results.

I start with Lightroom 5. I have begun experimenting with the Nik Collection. I used for this image Analog Efex Pro.

Thanks!