I only put my (in my opinion) best shots online here. By default, they all come straight from my camera without manipulation (except for the rescaling, black border and sometimes a 90 degree rotation).

If I manipulate a photo, the tags will say so...

Yep, like a lot of darkness in pictures, so you'll find that quite a few of my results are intentionally dark :)

I also tend to rely on free software (GPL licensed most of the time) -- for example ImageMagick and the GIMP (image manipulation), Hugin (panorama stitching), Qtpfsgui (HDR)... and glue it all together with some scripting for a workflow

I suggest to view my pictures at the original uploaded size. Flickr does rescaling, but I select my pictures to upload on a larger format than you see by default here, hence I think that format justifies my choice best (use + ALL SIZES above each pic).

Learning resources

photo.net/learn/

form.pbase.com/

other folks pictures work inspiring

Apart from that, experiment & push it to the limits right now ;) Good music helps...

Ciao!