Teach me something - C&C please

Wow, Dave thanks for taking the time and effort, really excited that you did that.

First impressions - I love it. You've managed to add more drama and "dystopia" such that it suits the title even better. I really like the emphasis on the tones and wind in the hair, and your work has removed the distraction in the top left corner and the stick by her feet, and also revealed her face better than before.

I do feel your edit is probably quite sharp, so that it almost looks embossed (at least on my crappy monitor at work). I feel that takes it from being a casual moment to the realm of photo-art, but I do love that - it's almost like an alternative interpretation of the photo.

How did you go about the edit? In full-blown PS, or just Elements? Did you take classes to learn, or just fiddle as you went?

This edit was with CS6. I haven't taken any classes, but I read a lot of stuff on the net, and I have watched quite a few videos from Russell Brown about editing using Photoshop. (just do a search)

I have been using Photoshop or Elements for 10 or more years.

I wish I would have recorded with quicktime what I did, cause when I start working on an image, I try so many things that sometimes I forget what I did and when.

In camera raw, yes, you can run JPG's through camera raw, I lightened the shadows some, raised the highlights some, and turned it into a black and white.

In CS6, I removed the stick using the clone tool. I then used the healing brush to even that area out. I then made two duplicate layers. One to add grit, one to smooth the background and her skin. Along with the layers, I added a mask. A mask makes it so you let some of that layer though, but not all of it. So I molded the layer masks as I wanted, making the foreground and her hair be (probably) a bit overcooked. The smoothening layer is there to smooth out her legs, arms, and the background.

It probably took about 10 - 15 minutes before I had where it was pretty much to my liking.

I don't know how much post processing you've done, but it's worth your time to develop some skills at it.

I hope this helped some.