Images I almost simply discarder or "Why I love Lightroom".

In a philosophical continuation of the "My Favorite Oak" post that I recently put up (whrere I cloned out a pipe to improve the image) I thought I'd share these recent shots. The originals are flat, bland and poorly toned. They certainly did NOT convey the emotional experience of being there at the moment. These do a much better job of that but have been heavily massaged in Lightroom. Nothing was cloned out. I suppose I would have though (to a limited degree) if necessary. I don't know why that bugs me so damm much but it does. With rare exceptions LR is as far as I'm comfortable taking a RAW image. But hey that's just me and I'm not judging. I SO wish I had the talent and/or equipment to capture images like this (or closer) straight from the lens but I'm not there yet. shrug..