I don't want to belittle your efforts. You certainly did a nice job on that example. If you enjoyed the effort and got satisfaction from the result, that's great.

It's easy for those who like to create an image from raw to come up with examples that cannot be done any other way. But don't dismiss those who can provide examples where JPEG is just as good.

Consider this - not all photography is landscape. There is a lot of other subject matter that in most cases can be rendered nicely with a carefully executed JPEG and it does not require you spending hours at your computer crafting the final image. Those of us who started off learning how to use Kodachrome have always known this.

Let's not kid ourselves either. The very best landscape photographers don't capture JPEG or raw on 24x36 mm sensors. They use medium format digital if they can afford it or they work with medium and large format film.

In most situations the scene's dynamic range (DR) does not exceed the capability of a carefully exposed JPEG or transparency film. This even includes most landscapes, just not the ones that are back-lit.

Even in situations with wider than normal DR, Active-D lighting (or by any other name) can recover as much shadow detail as you might want.

Many forms of photography use artificial light or reflectors and the art is in the lighting, not the post processing.

There are plenty of situations where the photographer needs a large number of images and manually processing individual images from raw would be tedious.

If all you have is a hammer (a 24x36 mm sensor) then you might be forgiven for thinking that everything looks like a nail.

The bottom line is subject matter. A well executed image of a boring subject can easily be trumped by a properly composed and exposed image of something more appealing.

Opinions on how to take and or process photos do Very little for your portfolio. Getting up from the computer and actually going out in the field and Taking photographs adds to the portfolio. We can and do beat this subject to death but you have to put the time in. You have to have the camera in hand and be there when the light is perfect, when that perfect cloud formation drifts overhead, when that bird dives down to catch the fish. Talking about capturing photographs gives you Zero results. Apply your thoughts with action, quit talking about it.............