Your having the same problem most have with post processing when the start, your just taking it a little to far. Your processing on the dog it to saturated, back it off a little to keep it looking natural, but nice. The other issue may be with your monitor. If you are going to post process photos you really need to get something to calibrate your monitor. That is the only way to know what it will come out like from a photo printing place. If you are going to be printing your own and want them to come out looking like they do on your screen you will need a package that calibrates your monitor and printer.
Hints:
1. Saturate but don't push it to much.
2. Adjusting your white and black points makes a big difference.
3. Don't over sharpen, edges will start getting halos when you over sharpen.
4. Always try to sharpen at 100% so you can see what it is really doing!
5. Last but not least, I say it all the time......put a little effort in, do some searches on the web, you can find all the info you want about post processing if you just search the web for it. Hell you can even find tutorials all over the place, and on youtube. Just look!
Here is a 2 minute post process on the dog.
J
Once you get a feel for it you'll naturally back off the post processing a little. I personally prefer the untouched photos. The muted tones of the first one are really pretty.
