Red Skies at Night

Red Skies at Night, a photo by Tony DeSantis Photography on Flickr.

This is a shot archived from a year ago. I have used some of the processing that I have learned in the past year. Nothing really spectacular or unusual on the processing side but still some fun to do.
This was shot in Dana Point, Ca. As you can see a beautiful area to shoot with the colorful rocks that line the beach.

Post Processing:
>Single Exposure-Processed into 5 tiff files through ACR -2, -1, 0, +1, +2
>Brought into Photomatix using Detail Enhancer, saved as single Tiff

CS-5:
>Cmd J to duplicate and clone tool used to remove spots and dust
>Nik Color Efex Pro 3.0-Tonal Contrast
>Nik Color Efex Pro 3.0-Tonal Contrast used again and lowered opacity to taste
>Nik Color Efex Pro 3.0-User defined Bi-color filter to change sky and water tint
>Adjustment Layer-Levels-tone down green in rocks
>Adjustment Layer-Curves-slight S curve to enhance contrast and remove foggy feel
>Sized and framed for posting

I have been asked how long does it take to process a photo. Well of actual process time varies some are more labor intensive than others depending on how much I have to do with Masking. But for the most part I would say this photo took about 2 hours from start to finish. Actual working time on the photo about 15 minutes., let me give a short explanation.
I get out the laptop, sit in my chair and turn on news or a sporting event (Lakers, Angels, NASCAR, Football) I start with an idea, do some processing, watch some TV mostly to take my attention away from the photo. After sometime I will go back to the photo and do some more work constantly taking away my focus from the photo so I am always using fresh eyes and ideas of where I want to see the photo go. I have found if I stare at a photo to long I get tunnel vision and my vision dries up. Constantly reevaluating the shot keeps the vision alive.

What is your processing time on a photo and how do you go about getting there?