Photoshop Elements Edited Photos

Last Sunday at tea, Julie and I were talking about Photoshop Elements. I am learning to use it for creating Digital Scrapbook layouts, but also for editing photos. Here is an example of the difference Photoshop Editing can make in a photo. This is a picture of Ethan from last Saturday, this was taken on the beach after Dad & Debbie's wedding. I knew it was going to be a great image, but the details were blown out and it needed some attention.
On the left is the image straight out of the camera on the right, the edited image.

You can see how much more detail & color I was able to get out of the image by editing it.

Laura has a great tutorial on how to edit photos on her blog Cameron Crazy Mom, this was my jumping off point, it's easier to do it her way than how I did it before. I do like to click on the "Quick" tab (at right) so that I can see the original image on left & edited image on the right, it helps me see what I'm doing, but I don't really know what I did to set it up to do it that way.