Photoshop

My husband Matt is the photographer and artist in our little family. We own a CanonT2i with a 28mm lens, fish-eye lens and a 18-55mm lens and I just (after months of working on it) learned how to accurately shoot in manual mode. 

I still make a ton of mistakes - mostly in the exposure of light. I need to take a class on it or something.

In the meantime, I have a learned a leetle (little said in a southern accent) about editing photos in Photoshop. We have the C5 version. 

Normally I use Picnik to edit, but now that I understand Photoshop a little, I can make a really dark or dim shot all sorts of pretty. 

For example - here is an original photo - taken by Meredith, but it was as the sun was setting and the lighting was a little dim and we looked pretty red.

And here is my edited version...

I brightened it overall by choosing Image, then Adjustments, then Curves. You just pull the little middle graph line up until its the right brightness for you. I actually made this one a little too bright.

Then I went to Colors (under Adjustments as well) and took a lowered the black out of the Neutrals (-20), and added some more black under the Reds (+20) to make some of the brighter colors pop.

And here is another example - same day, Matt took the photo, but the sun was setting and it made us look like we have pink skin. 

And here is my edited version...

Again, I adjusted the curves to make it brighter, and toned down the neutrals and turned up the reds. 

I like reds to pop in photos. If you turn up the yellows on photos of people, they normally look sickly. It you turn up the blues, same thing. Different color depths for different shots I guess.

I still have so much to learn, but Photoshop has been a blast so far. 

Does anyone have any tips/tricks for editing photos? I'd love some suggestions.