This link on PBase History brush techniques has helped me improve my photographs in Photoshop. I also found the free program Picassa for Windows to be great for simple fixes. The second photo below was poor with heavy shadows and burned out sky. Using photoshop levels I lightened the entire photo until I got the camel and shadows where I wanted them. Then I used the history brush to restore everything but the camel and the rider. I saved the picture and then used levels to darken the entire new photo and used the history brush to restore everything but the sky...presto... in my opinion a much more dramatic picture and it took less than 5 minutes. In the skyline picture I added blue to the picture to turn the river blue and then used the history brush to restore everything else. If I have any suggestion for good pictures it's use a tripod. The tripod guarantees sharp pics. There is no fix for a blurry picture. The last pics I used the free version of NeatImage to remove noise. Please visit my Nashville Websites
and my other photo galleries.