I'd hang it on the wall... Seriously, very nice job with the post process, not over cooked in my opinion. Has a nice film feel to it. I really don't find fault with it. Just wait though I am sure someone will think you should have used an ND filter or something.
Thanks, everyone for the comments.
I think I will go with a cropped version for my final print.
Printing as big as I can go on my Epson 3800. I'll probably try the new Epson Exhibition paper.
As for the post-processing in Photoshop CS3:
1) start with the RAW file and get exposure as close to final as possible.
2) use Black & white adjustment layer (I usually just click through the different presets, then make minor tweaks).
3) if I add color tone, I do this in a Hue/Saturation adjustment layer with the Colorize box checked.
4) then a make any further adjustments using a Levels or Curves adjustment layer to specific areas.
5) in this case I also added blur using a Lens Blur filter then added some Noise.
That's it. It's not very difficult to do the steps. It's only difficult figuring out how much to do - I rather do as little as possible. As Ansel Adams said, "Dodging and burning are steps to take care of mistakes God made in establishing tonal relationships. " For those of us who are not Ansel Adams, Photoshop helps when we make the "mistakes" as well. It still pays to be able to capture the photo the best we know how.
I stick with my guns. I like Option #1 best. Looks the most interesting to me, and yes I agree with your post stating it looks constrained. But it's not my wall
