Stipud, yes, that is Chicago. I moved here about 2 weeks ago to find a job,. Michigan was doing so terrible that i had to leave.
I highly suggest Photoshop (especially CS3), however the price tag is a bit ridiculous. They have a stripped down version called Lightroom that has everything any casual photographer could want. There is a book company called "lark" that makes great training books. Easy to read and follow. I highly suggest it.
I pretty much edit everything that is going to be posted. Rarely have I taken a shot that couldnt benefit from some post processing, even if it is just levels or contrast. However, some shots require hours. Also, shooting in raw format requires that you load it up into something.
This is what an original IR shot looks like. You can compare this one shot with the panoramic of 'the bean' and you can get an idea the sense of scale on the image. This shot had levels, contrast, curves, channel swaps, saturation bumps, sharpen masks, tons of erasing and cloning, and a ton of dodge/burn.
