It is reprocessing time, and it will last awhile, I fear. Went through the images and decided that I actually do not like the harshness of my original image, so I started from scratch, really from the bottom to the final. And I tried it ... let me count ... 5 times before I was happier than I was before. The new processing tools are fantastic, so many ways to attack the bear, and all of them lead to quite some differences in the final product, amazing, and also fun since a lot of extra work that needed to be done with a lot of effort is now quicker and not annoying (who remembers today how to get the stars out of the image by "hand"?).

I posted this and the next image as new images, and yes, I actually got a pop-up about the etiquette not to do this (there must be a comparison mechanism somewhere, or was it just triggered by the word "reprocessed" in the title?) And then I wondered: why is this a rule or better recommendation? The only thing that I could think about was that the submission to IOTD plays a role here, since as far as I know I have unlimited uploads for my plan. For all the people that worry about this: I won't do that, as I usually do not with many of my images. On the other hand, why not? If someone has a wonderful image obtained by processing older data since they learned so much more and due to the new tools, and the image is so much better than before (which I think this one is, well ... IMHO), then why not letting this image go into the submission queue? Yes, there are some who submit almost the identical image again (and again) and receive again (and again) recognition, now I do understand that this shall be avoided, speaks to the one who submitted though.

Hope I did not bore you too much with this, but sometimes there are just some things that bother me, sorry about that. I posted these 2 as new images since I want to see them in my gallery, and not just as a version, since with a new version I won't really see the previous one anymore, which I was at the time of creation very proud about. Hope that this is understandable and that you all "forgive" me. And yes, please skip the like if you think that this is not the way to go, I am more than fine with that as well.

Btw.: I processed this image very very differently from the first trials, which made me wonder: did I forget all those "old processing" tricks? And shamefully I have to admit that I did, and that I should revive some one of them since they really helped a lot and I believe that they are still useful for fine-tuning.