Testing out adustment layers - Photoshop

I thought I would give a little test to one of the fantastic tutorials on psdtuts. Here are three photos I tinkered with to see if I could get a more dramatic look from photos I'd taken with a 6MP camera, all features were auto except focus.

Here is Kadie unaware of me with the camera - you think she'd know by now. It was a quick snapshot, and this is the picture I work the most on, and followed closest to the tutorial given at http://psd.tutsplus.com/tutorials/photo-effects-tutorials/how-to-turn-humdrum-photos-into-cinematic-portraits/. I like the almost blue crush effect that still highlights and accents the facial features. The background is just some cloud brushes and a smoke brush, with a bit of a vignette. 

Jeremy looking out, I felt like I'd a bit of simulated depth of field and highlight the colors. This is me trying to remember what the tutorial talked about without looking back at it.

Here are some Ugandan school children I took a picture of last year. With no reference to the original tutorial this is just two curves adjustment layers, one for black, and one for light, and one gradient adjustment layer. Some finetuning in the highlights, but I just wanted to see if I could make it a bit more dramatic than it already was.

If you haven't already checked out psd tuts, give them a try, I think you'll like it.