I have often wondered about this and I guess it depends on the original picture and what one wants to convey. A good illustration of what is pleasing to most people is the great difference in opinions (so far) of my Glowing and Glowing 2
Personally I prefer the original, but that is because in it I see what I saw - a pretty gift of garden flowers on my kitchen table in the sunshine, whereas the "improved" version is a place-mat without any soul. However, in this case, the time spent in PSP seems to have paid off as far as vote opinions go.
I wish I had the talent that many others have, of producing pictures that do not need any enhancement.

I think that all photos need post processing to a certain extent...if it's resizing, sharpening, adding some special effect, enhacing color, color correction, noise reduction, curves, levels, etc. Also, the camera usually doesnt capture the scene 'as is' - especially when using auto white balance.

Anyways, nothing is wrong with post processing - it's not a bad thing. Even ansel adams did it on all of his shots - he just used a darkroom instead of photoshop (or any other program).

this and the link on the description shows how much post processing i do.

You have an emotional attachment to the scene you saw. The viewer doesn’t have that handicap. You like “Glowing” better than “Glowing 2” but I like “Glowing 2” better, but then I never saw the original scene.

When you think about it that is the real difference between a snapshot and a piece of art. One is for your memory the other is for the viewer’s pleasure. The snapshot does the job straight out of the camera the art might, but probably wont. So you get to make a choice snapshot or art, then do what you need to do to achieve it.

Very well put, Robert.
I can not recall ever having posted a picture without enhancing it in any way before. Some I spend many hours on, others not so long. In my case that is no guarantee they will look anything like pieces of art. And I have the archives to prove it lol.

Snap, I have archives like that too :-)

These days I discard any blurry photos and any that are more than half a stop from the correct exposure. I’m not going to use them so why archive them?

Errrm Robert, I actually meant the archives here :)
My own archives are called my FMF - File of Many Failures.Sometimes they get resurrected, such as this one, and do ok :)

LOL… Oh well no harm done :-)

Love that name, File of Many Failures. I like your resurrection job too. If you hadn’t told us it was resurrected we would never have known.