Made almost 5 years ago with my very first camera - a 2MP Olympus 2040Z. I'm posting it because of what I learned today about post processing (& other things) using this image. Only lighting, color & contrast were adjusted (standard darkroom stuff) and cropping to a 3:2 format. Here's the 5 year old *before* version - http://www.pbase.com/image/90004590 (& yes, it really was snowing that hard). In a scene like this being able to accurately set black, white & neutral points is 99% of the battle.
Lesson 1 - There's a lot of data in an image file that top quality editing software can bring out - even jpeg from an old 2 MP P&S. I used Nikon Capture NX and the Nik Color Efex Pro 2.0 plug-in for NX. I was surprised to see how much even this old 2 MP file had to give.
Lesson 2 - not new, but to be remembered, is the fact that no matter how good this 2 MP lo-res image looks *on screen* it will never compare to my new D300's 12 MP hi-res *in print* when enlarged beyond snap shot size.
Lesson 3 - Reinforces the order of things in terms of what makes a good image - a) least important is the camera body, b) next comes the lens, c) most important is the object peering through the viewfinder (or in this case looking at the LCD). Of course being at the right place at the right time never hurts.
PS - The snow isn't covering the fence at the left - it's my vantage point below the crest of a small hill chosen to hide the road between me & the scene.