Made this one on the fly two days ago at 450mm.
The first one is relatively straight forward processed. The second one I added an instance of color calibration [edit:(monochrome)] to it but not at full opacity.
Thanks in advance for your opinion…!
Kind regards Jetze
I like the second one because it has more contrast in the details. But it could probably use a slight exposure bump.
Midway between the two? I like the second because there the detail comes out better but a slight bump in brightness and saturation might help.
The second one. I fully agree with @raublekick.
I prefer the bottom one, because the colors look more “natural”. I can’t be sure they are more correct, but they look better to me.
The First one. The colors!
You are the artist. Our opinion doesn’t really matter. The second image looks more detailed or sharper. I personally would prefer a brighter rendition.
Whole heartily agree.
Thanks all for reacting.
Mostly I have not much problems deciding about how to proceed. In this case I somehow got stuck in my brain. Usually some talking / forum commenting help me out.
I first came up with the nice dark and very oversaturated look @Ulrich_from_Germany likes much too. That was a good departure from reality which was much lighter and less intense.
But the oversaturation annoyed me a bit. So I came up with a monochrome color calibration on top of AgX, and later - step by step - greatly dialed it back. Though I felt more happy it didn’t work and I got stuck.
And I sure do agree with @Terry and @siamak it is the author / artist to finally decide.
Thanks @raublekick and all others for getting my brain working again…
By the way - do you see a little dog in it as well?
Kind regards, Jetze
The latest version… (I like duplicates)
You see a dog, I see a donkey! 
We may never predict what’s on another man’s mind…
I prefer this third version. It has more pop and your first two looked very dull in comparison. There may even be room to further darken the shadows to make them deeper to draw the eye even more to the lighter region which is the point of interest. It looks like a dog with vomit exploding out of its mouth to me…maybe too much Christmas pudding.
@Terry , No. Still is a donkey to me. 
Yes I see your version now. 
You see the dog facing the camera. I see a donkey side view. The vomit in my version is nostril and the mouth of from underside -sideview( looking up from ground up ) looking of a donkey in the un-cropped version.
I disagree with this sort of attitude in situations like this. Yes, we are all the artist. But opinions can give us new ways of looking at things. Following the opinion blindly is not always wise, but figuring out the motivation behind opinions can reveal blind spots and suggest new avenues of exploration.
If it’s well-thought out, then critique and opinion is usually interesting and does matter. Even the great artists seek out opinions and have improved because of them.
But I did share my opinion since it was asked for. I was just saying the artists opinion is the only really important opinion. When I was a professional (mercenary) photographer I had a saying that beauty is in the eye of the person with the wallet. It didn’t matter if I liked the picture but the client didn’t. Now I am an amateur I can enjoy my photography for its sake alone. 
P.S. It turns out the word cu-stomer is taboo for posting on this site…Hmmmm…I wonder why?
We were happily not too deep into Xmass festivities.
Thanks for the suggestions. I have a (short?) period in which I do not like strong colors and lots of pop…
Don’t know about others - but I have periods (don’t get me wrong here…) in which I develop more and sometimes less strong. Something like the mood of the week.
Kind regards, Jetze
You persevere… quite well
Kind regards, Jetze
Thanks Jason, I fully agree. And happily I did get some of this kind of suggestions. getting me out of my own groove.
