Newbie needs help on image editing

I've been trying to retouch a few photos now for a while but I just can't get them right, they still look pretty crappy even after I've been fooling around with them in Photoshop. So it'd be cool if someone please could pull a few tricks out of the hat and show me how it's done. :confused:

Well, here's the pic:
http://www.glisseur.com/portfolio/toby9.jpg

Is that you? =) (sorry ,but I had to ask....)

also, elaborate what you are trying to accomplish. That would help.

welcome aboard, tell us what you trying to get out of the pictures so we can try to point you to the right dirrection.

PS:
Please do not post images ,, link to them instead.

Well, it needs to be sharpened up but that's not a problem (I'm familiar with unsharp mask). I'd like to get the colors right, whiter snow and still keep the colors of those mountains brownish. And I also want to make it a little bit brighter without loosing the contrasts.

Basically, I just want to turn the pic back to "normal state" if you understand what I mean. I saw the dia before it was scanned and it didn't look anything like that. The scan looks so washed out as is the case with a lot of my winter pics. I have a bunch of these pics that need retouching so I'd really appreciate some hints on where to start.

--> Marble:

Yeah, that's me. It was a good day in the mountains :-)

I'd like to get the colors right, whiter snow and still keep the colors of those mountains brownish

Add an adjustment layer (try color balance) and edit the layer mask to only include the mountains. If ya dont know how to do this...read the manual. Also.....if color balance doesnt work out....try a Hue/Saturation adjustment layer. Then lower the saturation a bit (u want white mountains...so why not take some out the color)

And I also want to make it a little bit brighter without loosing the contrasts.

U could use a brightness/contrast (or levels/curves etc) adjustment layer or you could even try Image>Adjust>autolevels. That may give u what your looking for....if not go for the adjustment layer and tweak til your happy.

Thanks, that seems to help a lot. Another question; the picture looks great while in Photoshop but when I want to save it for web it doesn't look that good anymore, even before I start to fiddle with the settings. Any solution to this?

What are you trying to save it as? PNG should be clearest, but is a big file.

Oh, I forgot. Want to save it as jpg. Could it be my settings in Photoshop that are wrong, like gamma settings (Mac, Windows)? Because it really looks different when I go to "Save for Web".

You need to run the adobe gamma program. Before you start getting all this advice about using this or tweaking that, go to your start --> control panel --> you should see the adobe gamma utility (dbl click it). Adjust your monitor.

I played around with your image (the .jpg)... And found-out you can get really nice results with a combination of 3 adjustement layers

-Level (original is a bit to dark) Set 0 / 1,6 /255
-Hue and saturation (lets make the color a bit more brither) Saturation + 10 (I put this very often)
-Color Balance (lets make this snow white) +20 / 0 / -65

And finally sharp the image a little bit