Is it just my imagination or do photos ripen if they are tucked away. I have taken photos that I think are really below average, but for some reason I keep them. If I pack them away on my hard drive for a few weeks or months then come back and view them, I notice how much they have ripened and are now pleasing to the eye. Does this happen to anyone else? Is there a way to speed up the ripening process? Maybe my eyes are getting tired, and I just cant visualize the stink in them anymore.

When you take a photograph you see an image in your mind's eye that is not necessarily what the camera sees. At least that happens in my case. The further away from what I wanted the picture to be, the greater the disappointment. I think this stops me seeing the picture for what it is. In answer to your question, yes, it happens to me. I can go back to a picture and see more in it than I could at first. I am, of course, also looking at it through different eyes. The reverse also happens. Pictures I think are good I go back to and wonder what I ever saw in it. Such is life.

I have found in the long term that the more images i have seen (on caedes and other sites) the higher my expectations have tended to be; i am much more critical in my own mind as i have become more experienced and tgat takes into account my own photos. So i guess i tend to have the opposite experience to what you have described. I think i also see my photos differently to others as i know how i have chosen to frame the image and what has been cut off around the edges which i think removes some of the "magic" of it, shall we say - makes it feel less professional, more domestic/amateur. Of course this doesn't happen with other peoples images so i guess i am less impressed, if anything, with my own shots than other pepple are.