First time editing

[jimmycricket]

Hey guys, I use a very basic very old adobe elements program, and I figured I might as well make the most of it. So here is a sample of my first attempts at touching up a photo.

I took this photo today in natural lighting (sry didn't save the specs) and I just wanted to bring out more from what the originals gave me.

I'll post the original and then the edited.

original:
http://i43.tinypic.com/28l80ih.jpg
edit:
http://i44.tinypic.com/2eoktwg.jpg


*2nd photo*
original:
http://i42.tinypic.com/2a93yxd.jpg
edit:
http://i39.tinypic.com/2ps287l.jpg

I'm just looking for some viewer comments on whether I am going in the right direction with the edits or if I should take a step back lol.

Thanks for looking!

[james]

eh, i think the originals look much better....

where were you trying to go with them? just more vibrance and saturation?

[jimmycricket]

pretty much. Just wanted to get more color out of the violin compared to the velvet in the case it was laying on. now that I'm looking at the pictures on a different computer i can hardly tell a difference. I used a little unsharped masking on both.

but hey, there's nothing wrong with originals looking good right? lol