What are some basic photoshop tips for making your photos better?

I know my way around photoshop but I mostly use it for design, how can I use it for photography as well?What are some basic photoshop tips for making your photos better?
Brightness And Contrast





The most overlooked problem that most images have is that the brightness and contrast is most always off. When creating images, especially when using layers flatten and change the brightness and contrast.





When you are done editing your image go to





IMAGE %26gt; ADJUST %26gt; BRIGHTNESS/CONTRAST





Move the contrast slider +65, you will immediately start seeing the colors pop they way they should.What are some basic photoshop tips for making your photos better?
There are so many thing you can do to enhance photos... One of my favorites is using the Dodge and the Burn tool, which lets you Lighten or Darken parts of an image respectively.





If you are working with a portrait you can make teeth and eye balls whiter without worrying about being precise by working with the Dodge tool set to highlights, you can make cheeks rosy, by working with Midtones and you can get rid of some wrinkles by working with shadows.





If it is a scenery picture you can use them to make the sky bluer or a forest greener.





Other tools you should try to master is the Healing Brush and Spot healing Brush.





You might also want to check out any video tutorial on Lynda.com by Chris Orwig, all of this material is about using Photoshop for Photography.
Hi,





Generally for retouching or enhancing a photo I'd go about :





1) Looking at what bits need to be fixed first like red eyes, scratches, objects to be removed or cloned etc.





2) Fixing surfaces. i.e if there are human skins to be glossed or noised etc.





3) Fixing the tonality of the overall image, if it needs warming, more exposure etc.





Use your critical mind to judge the image and try to visualize how you'd want it to look. It really needs your input throughout the process.





whatever happens, remember to enjoy it. :)





Hope I helped.





Take care
For me, i tend to use alot of the tool Contrast, makes the pictures colour look better. And if you're looking at making yourself look good, for eg skinnier or stuff, try liquify ;)
adjusting Brightness/Contrast are always very basic try adjusting color with curves


don't forget to use adjustment layers





hope that helps =)