Thanks, guys. Kent's right on the money for asking, insofar as I've been known to make silk purses out of sows' ears with Photoshop. And thank you Ron for the compliment and for confirming the processing I've done isn't showing.
Generally speaking I did very little Photoshop manipulation. A bit more than half of these were shot Raw, so Photoshop's Camera Raw played a part. I really like the CA correction features of that tool.
Levels adjustment as needed, and for a few images I did some cropping. Also, in several cases with the higher ISO shots (many of these were at ISO 800 and above) I did some selective noise reduction on the backgrounds to help the crisply focused subject stand out in a more 3D fashion. I use my dSLR Tools actions for noise reduction, and the "...As Layer On Top" or "...As Layer Underneath" features to help apply them selectively. Lastly, I sharpened most of these with my fractal sharpening actions. Sounds like a lot of processing, but I really didn't spend more than a few moments on each one (the beauty of actions). I also used one of my own actions (not in any of my commercial sets) for adding the drop shadow frame and a touch of final sharpening. If you'd like a copy, you can get it here;
http://actions.home.att.net/temp/Frame.atn
I should point out that the 40D's Evaluative metering turns out shot after shot perfectly exposed. It's the best yet.
Here, for example, is one of the out-of-camera JPEGs:
http://forum.ourdarkskies.com/galler...16_1826887.jpg
-Noel