To edit or not to edit, that is the question.

We all know that digital photographs require a certain amount of basic editing, especially if you shoot in raw as I do, and that infra red has some additional work which needs to be done. My question is really to do with how far we need/should go. Of course the answer will always be it depends on the photograph and why the editing is being done. As I have said before filters, conversions, use of plugins etc will never rescue a poor image so we are assuming a basically decent start photograph.

The reason I am musing over this is because of the last image in my previous post, I kept going back to it believing there was something more in the image which, with some careful editing, could be coaxed out. In my mind I was imaging something a bit whimsical, prompted by the flowing clothes of the ladies mirrored in the billowing trees, also the idea of childhood being carefree and fun, how would these children remember this day?

Anyway I started to edit and came up with this version, created by cropping and adding some fractalius.

This is the original version for comparison

I think the reworked version is better, for the reasons stated above, but realise that it is sometimes difficult to be truly objective about your own work so any other opinions would be valued and taken on board.