Misty Cato's Tutorials

Today, I followed a couple of Misty Cato's numerous tutorials on her blog. The lesson entitled, Photo Editing: Impact Portraits, was a real eye-opener. I started out with a photo that, although not technically great (and which certainly could use a lot of help in the composition department), I thought had pretty good color balance:

After a series of steps involving, among other things, copying the original picture various times and using different screen modes, we arrived at the finished product. The improvement in the picture (which I cropped, per her suggestion) and color balance is amazing to me!

Check out Misty's website, her store, and her tutorials.  The tutorials are clear and easy to follow.  And her product is first-class.