Thought you might want to see what Perfect Effects 8 can do

[NV Whino]

Before. Nice but not great.


After I used the contrast filter. What a difference!


Okay this one is weird. I used the lens blur to blur background and foreground to make the ice plant pop. I ended up with tiles where i was blurring. Maybe it was because I started with a jpeg rather than a RAW file. However, had this worked, it would have been a much better photo with the blur. I'll have to try this filter on a RAW file to see if it does the same thing.
Before


After

[alfredo]

1. It's great software, but I'm used to GIMP and LightZone.

[NV Whino]

2. GIMP takes forever to load filters on my machine

And to me, a newby to GIMP, seems less intuitive.

[alfredo]

3. Startup is slow, but I have no deadlines. Yes, there is a steep learning curve, but

it seems they have improved the interface. It used to have menus in the window in a very Linux/UNIX style.

[NV Whino]

4. I just got an update for GIMP

I'll have to give it another try.

[alfredo]

6. There's some good plugins too. Just be sure to download new versions.

[Curmudgeoness]

5. Those tiles showing up in the photo is strange.

I hope you figure out how and why that happened....it makes no sense.

You are right about the first photo. The contrast filter did an excellent job of refining the photo.