I believe that image processing is an art form in itself. We don’t need lots of fancy skills or have to spend hours changing the way an image looks, but it is where our individual, unique vision is imprinted on the file. Some people wish to do minimal adjustments while others enjoy using filters and effects to achieve their current way of seeing. It takes time to reach a place where we are settled with our own style.
Personally, I don’t alter my images too much, although I did go through a nuclear HDR tone-mapping phase back in the day. Instead, I tend to make minimal adjustments and colour corrections within Lightroom and Photoshop, having already exposed the camera to hopefully achieve the best RAW file available for processing.