I don't think I'll ever be able to say who's right or who's wrong, neither it's my "job" to do so. One must have his/her reasons to use whatever techniques he/she likes, and has the rights to do that. These images shouldn't just be "excluded" by a "post-processing police department" as you suggested because they don't fit into some predefined rules. If so, soon we'll end up having a "no-spirals" rule, a "no-basic mandelbrot set zoom ins" rule, and so on. My first question can be interpreted in many ways: I could have asked it by trying to know what's the "acceptable" level of post processing (if any - "how much", and I think this was what I really wanted to ask), or to say that "I hate post processing". I think I've just said that I don't "hate" post-processing. Probably I think it's not necessary, most of the times. And just clicking some plugin presets just for the fun of it is really not the way to go, I think.