I agree with Chris about doing as much in camera as possible, I'm a grumpy old photographer who goes back to that anachronistic form of photography that used film (gasp).
Back then we often baked in a look and tried to perfect the shot in camera, using lenses, filters, and a variety of tricks. But. No matter how much we tried to lock it in in-camera there were loads of pre-, peri- and post-processing tricks that were used to give the image a certain look. My point? Always try and get it right the first time, but don't be afraid to play with the image in 'post'. I say this because when you shoot RAW you
must play with the image in post and you shouldn't feel less of photographer for using Light Room or Photoshop etc.
(there are plenty of discussions on LR v PS in these pages, have a look through them but in essence most of us who use PS have used it since before LR came about, and are comfortable with it so don't want to change. LR is probably the best way for you to go, and forget about PS.)
Something that helped me understand digital photography is reading a lot of the Adobe and camera manufacturer information on RAW v JPEG. When you shoot JPEG you are effectively processing the image in camera - the camera applies a series of settings on your behalf around colour saturation, sharpening etc. and the result is a JPG file which is 'baked in' and (relatively) harder to alter. On some cameras you can adjust the amount of processing JPEG is doing, but it is still doing processing. RAW is
pure sensor data (within technical restrictions) so none of these tweaks have been applied. They are left up to you with the expectation that you want to change settings after the event. The image that you see when you first open a RAW file is interpreted and usually very flat and 'soft', regardless of the camera manufacturer you use. Therefore to get the best image when shooting RAW you
have to go into your image editor and sharpen/tweak/colourise etc.
My view of the New World Order in photography is that 'real photographers' know how to get it 'right' in the camera with composition and technique, and then know how to get the most out of the sensor data in the editor and then bring the image to life when turning it into a JPEG (or other image format), otherwise they get half a result.
One thing I'd add to the comments about your photos is you might want to read up on White Balance. It is very important in digital photography and can help restore a more natural look to odd colour casts. I tend to look at it when I want to affect the emotion of an image - warmer and more comforting or bluer/whiter for a more natural (or pushed, clinical) feel.
Cheers,
Humphrey.
