China Town

Are you looking specifically for that effect in Photoshop?
To me it looks unnatural and not like a photograph at all.

Of course, (art and) photo manipulation, like a lot of things in life, is a personal thing and oftentimes highly subjective.

I do like your photos in and around Greater London, as I used to live in Ealing for many years, and I spent a great amount of time in the West End during my halcyon days. :-)

Today, I do minimal work in Canon DPP and Lightroom/PS and follow the rule… Less is more.
Oh… I should confess, I am not a big fan of HDR images… There, I said it.

Hi Greg, thank you for taking the time and giving feedback. I am quite happy to hear that you like my London photos.
Related to this particular photo, I don't think there is too much editing going on here. Yes, some colour grading, playing with the sky, etc., but I don't find it too fake. But everyone has a different taste. I was thinking of keeping it BW (I shot JPEG and see it in the camera BW), but I like the red theme here very much and kept it coloured. I normally don't use presets, but I was experimenting with using Lightroom web presets on the photos, but I did use a Lightroom web suggested "Cinematic" preset, but I even changed a few bits after this. I am attaching the original raw image with only applied auto and HDR settings. Perhaps you didn't like the HDR range, but I prefer it if there is significant clipping of highlights, the sky looks much better with HDR settings on this photo.

I do like the original; thanks for uploading it.
Yes, of course it’s all subjective, and often it just boils down to personal taste.

For me today, a child of the ‘60s… the blacks in my photos have to be black.
Nothing beats a little bit of mystery, and the mind will fill in the blanks. :-)
I have increased the black point quite a ways in PS in this screenshot.

Maybe my perception is a little bit amiss?

Color vision deficiency affects approximately 1 in 12 men (8%)
and 1 in 200 women in the world!

No colour all we are happy :)