When is too much post processing to much?

It's cold and wet outside. I was trawling through some old shots taken on my Canon Powershot S2 from a few years back. Playing around with some presets in Lightroom. These are some of the results. Yes they are oversaturated. Yes some have cliche vignettes. But my eyes and brain tell me they are great eye candy and I like it!

Every purist around will probably tell me to tone it down. But you know what. I would not do it. These are after all just self indulgent interpretations. Sometimes you just have to play a little.

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I don't think its over done, but I tend to go nuts on saturation too. I like em.

Your photos......your prerogative! I know there are lots of "rules" to follow, do's and don'ts, and what not, but if they are YOUR photos and YOU like the way they look then I think that is what matters. When someone decides to pay you for your work then they can tell you what looks good and what doesn't.

yourdoinitwrong wrote in post #9661161
Your photos......your prerogative! I know there are lots of "rules" to follow, do's and don'ts, and what not, but if they are YOUR photos and YOU like the way they look then I think that is what matters. When someone decides to pay you for your work then they can tell you what looks good and what doesn't.

Strong username to advice ratio

Photography is art, art has no limits.

No offense, but what's your point? Do whatever you want to your images. That doesn't mean I or anyone else has to like it.

Discov3ry wrote in post #9661179
Strong username to advice ratio

Photography is art, art has no limits.

Haha I didn't even think about my username when I replied. There's a long story behind that name and yes I know that "your" is supposed to be "you're"! (I get asked that a lot).

Too much for me, but why should you care.

I kind of like it for that second shot though.

I personally love high contrast and saturation.
I think the pp were done nicely, very strong yet not over the saturation/contrast boundary

Those flowers look awesome.

I like the first two and the last

I tend to like contrasty pictures myself; I pretty much always pinch levels in a little on either end and I always up saturation at least to +40 (ACR). Vibrance/saturation sometimes get pushed a little bit "much", but as others have said if you like it you're doing it just fine.

Now, if you're shooting for a photorealistic look, well, then there is a line that can be drawn. Otherwise, push as you please.

When the edits don't work for the image or when you've destroyed the information in the image. Otherwise there is no limit.

denMAR wrote in post #9663059
When the edits don't work for the image or when you've destroyed the information in the image. Otherwise there is no limit.

Don't agree with the second actually. You can destroy half the information or more in an image and still make it look great. Look at all the stuff andy warhol did to images, clipping everything from certain colors to making images black and white (not gray scale, just binary image. well, mainly two colors, but ONLY two colors in some things).

Basically, if you have to ask yourself if you went overboard because you're not satisfied with the outcome, you went overboard. If not, call it an artistic interpretation and case closed.

I think it's too much when you come back to it a day later and say "I may need to tone that down a little."

Personally I think you are your biggest critic and you should trust yourself more than you trust a random person who has their own tastes that don't align with yours. Just because they like chocolate and you like vanilla doesn't mean that you can't like your vanilla anymore.