Like you Gremlin, I like natural pics, so the first one is my favourite...you can't improve on nature.......picture 2 has its own charm too.
I do edit pictures...I crop them and sometimes I have been known to do a bit of fiddlin'......Davemac will attest to this, since he led me astray with a FREE editing program, Photoscape. It is really really easy to use and you can have hours of cheap fun playing around with pictures.
Here is a link:-
Download Photoscape - Photoscape - Free Photoscape Download
Have a go.
I tried to get my hear around HDR, but my attempts were dismal failures...must be doing something wrong