Ok, I got your file this morning and I had a little bit of time to play with the image. I just want to remind you (and everyone else) that I am not an expert by any means and I have learned a little in the last year since I bought photoshop from 1 book (Scott Kelby's), people on the forum, and lots of practice and trial and error. I highly recommend the scott Kelby book for photoshop elements; his style of writing and explanation are very entertaining. With that all said here is what I did with the pic that you sent me. I wish that they were a smidge larger so that you could see the changes but I didn't want to post them too large.
Here is the original file resized for the forum:
The first step that I did was did a levels adjustment. In the very top menu I selected enhance, adjust lighting, and finally levels. In levels you set what your black point (or darkest part) your white point (or lightest point) and a gray point. On the right hand side there are eye droppers that are black, white, and gray. Select each of the droppers individually and on your photo click the area that is the darkest, lightest, and most gray area. If it is hard to tell where your white point and black point are you can use an adjustment layer (Over on the lower right hand side of your screen there is a circle that is half black and half white; these are the adjustment layers) called threshold to figure out where your darkest and lightest spot is by moving the little slider under the histogram to the far left and far right. Here is what I came up with after doing a levels adjustment:
The second thing that I did was use unsharp mask. It makes the pic have more contrast. You get there by once again selecting enhance, and then you click towards the bottom unsharp mask. When I use unsharp mask with portraits I use the following settings: Amount 20%, Radius 50, and threshold 0-4 (depending on what you like). Here is what I came up with after doing unsharp mask:
The next thing that I did was adjusted the color. There are many ways that you can do it but one of my favorite ways is by using color variations. I like it because you can see the before and after at the same time. To get there go to enhance, adjust color, and finally at the bottom of the menu is color variations. Color variations lets you adjust the color on the midtones, the highlights, and the shadows seperately. I usually start with the midtones first (for whatever reason).
Here is what I came up with after I did color variations:
The next step that I did was I adjusted the saturation of the pic the color seemed a little too saturated and so I wanted to desaturate the picture a little. I could have done this in color variations but I did it a different way instead. I once again went to enhance, adjust color, but this time I selected adjust hue/saturation. With adjust hue/saturation you can pick individual colors you want to adjust or you can just do all of the colors. You select the colors you want by clicking on the menu next to the word edit. The default is master and means pretty much adjust all colors. In this case I used master and this is what I came up with:
Step 5 I lightened her eyes using the dodge tool. I just learned that PSE5 had the dodge tool. The dodge tool lets you lighten just a portion of the pick as opposed to lightening the whole pic at once. In PSE5 it is located on the left hand side in the tool bar and it is a black circle with a black line sticking out of the circle (it sort of reminds me of a nasal aspirator). In PSE5 it is at the bottom of the tools just below a triangle (or water drop or pokey finger depending on which one you used last; most likely it is on the triangle). Click on the black cirlcle with the line (nasal aspirator). When you move your mouse over the screen it will appear as a circle. Change the size of the circle so that it is smaller than the iris of her eye. With your daughters eyes being so dark I lightened both the shadows and the midtones of her eyes. The third thing to do besides changing the size of the circle and the range that it lightens (shadows, midtones, and highlightes) is the exposure. Exposure means how much it lightens the area. I prefer to use a small amount because I can always do the area more if I want it lighter. Here is what I came up with after I lightened her eyes:
In the next two steps I sharpened the whole image and then sharpened her facial features (eyes, nose, and mouth). To sharpen the whole image I went to enhance, adjust sharpness which is at the bottom of the enhance menu. The amount that I sharpen varies from picture to picture. For this one the amount I chose was 20%. The other two things to chose are the radius and the type of blur you want to remove. I usually leave the radius at 3 and the type of blur as gaussian. This is what I came up with after sharpening the whole image:
As I said earlier the next thing that I did was selectively sharpened her eyes, nose, and mouth. Earlier when I talked about the dodge tool I mentioned a tool above it (the triangle). Well the triangle represent the sharpen tool. I clicked on the triangle and changed the size so that it was about the size of the object that I wanted to sharpen. Then I selected the strength to be 30% and clicked on the image where I wanted it sharpened more. I never have messed with changing the mode yet. Anyway here is what I came up with after selective sharpeneing her eyes, nose, and mouth:
Normally I would sharpen as my last step in editing a pic but I still wasn't completly happy with the final product. The picture seemed a little dark so I lightened the whole image by adjusting the brightness in the brightness/contrast menu. To get there click on enhance, adjust lighting, and brightness/contrast. I adjusted the brightness but left the contrast the same. This is what I got when I lightened the whole picture.
Finally I wanted to lighten the midtones a little bit more so I went back into levels but this time I clicked on the gray triangle under the histogram and moved it to the left. This is the final product I came up with:
So here is the original file you sent me:
and here is my final edit:
Some of my other favorite tools are:
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the clone tool (looks like a stamp)- I use this typically on backgrounds when I want to copy one portion of a photo and fill another part of the photo with the area that I copies.
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the crop tool
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the magic want tool-lets you select an area that has a similar color by clicking on an area. I typically use this when I work with backgrounds and want to select the background but not the main subject.
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the laso tool- for selecting areas.
You will notice that when you click on the tools on the left hand side at the top left toolbar there are other symbols. These are other tools that are similar to the tool that you just clicked on. For instance, with the sharpen tool (triangle) that one also has the blur tool (drop of water) and the smudge tool pointed finger; these tools do similar types of things (sharpen, make bllurry, etc).
I hope this information has helped you somehow.
You asked earlier if I had a boy or a girl. I have a girl but I watch a little boy that is 10 months old so I get lots of practice with both of the kiddos. Here is a picture of my daughter:
Have a great weekend and enjoy that little girl of yours!
Sarah