After using Lightroom for a few years, my rule is now "If an image needs more than 30 seconds of post processing, I delete it and move on."
An exception is if I love the photo but need to take out backscatter.
Post processing is so much more than white balance and exposure adjustments; it is a hugely valuable tool for filing photos, automated backup, and finding photos again.
It is also a very good learning tool; last weekend I went to a local festival with camera; before I went I looked at the photos I shot last year and reviewed the focal length of all the 'good' shots, looked at most of the other settings like i.s.o. and the aperture setting. So when I returned this time I used a different lens but I had a better idea what aperture to use for each type of shot for the effect I wanted.
How long did it take me to find the photos from last year? About 4 seconds ! I just typed in "Morikami" into the lightroom search and instantly saw all the photos I have taken there.
I can also type in 150-500mm and instantly, Lightroom will show me all the photos I took with that particular lens.
I can type in S110 and instantly see all the photos I took with that camera.
I can type in " Castor" and instantly see all the photos I took at the artificial wreck MV Castor.
There are many programs for post-processing. The difficult part with all of them is 'getting started'. If you can take a class, or sit with an experienced friend for a few minutes that will help you understand what to do at first. Then you can ignore all the 'advanced stuff' for now and learn that stuff later when/if you need to.
To me, to buy a modern camera and not shoot in raw is like buying a very good sound system for my car but never using it for anything other than A.M. talk radio.
Raw images will use a lot of memory, possibly 30 megabytes where a jpg could be less than a megabyte for the same photo. Today memory really is cheap. Putting a 64 gigabyte card in a camera is still much less than the cost of a two-tank dive charter.
