The importance of post-processing in Photography

Little we know that post processing in photography is really important. When we take certain photos, we might has thought that "Well.. this photo good enough..". Believe me... its not that good. Even professional photographer with lots of knowledge in photographing breathtaking photos agreed that post processing is essential tool that need to be mastered.

Below are one example taken by myself and post processed also by myself using all time favorite editing program Photoshop CS2.

Original
Exif data : Manual
Aperture : F10
Shutter speed : 1/160
ISO : 400
Metering : Center weight average
Off body flash : strobe SB600 at 1/8 power from left

Re-touched
Using Photoshop CS2 tools : Without any particular order
Adjusting Level
Filter Gaussian blur
Burn Tool
Blending mode Multiply
Opacity adjustment
Duplicate layer
Filter noise - median
Filter sharpen - unsharp mask
Adjusting Shadow and Highlights

Feel free to try or ask if there's any inquiry.