There may be plenty of examples of how to retouch but those of my friends who don't follow that sort of stuff I wanted to show you what can be achieved with Photoshop in under three hours, and I'm not in any way a pro at this.

You may remember this image from an earlier post.  I did a bit of work on the eyes but not much else.



AFTER  3 hours of Photoshop


Looks more beauty like but I feel the top image still captured the essence of the project overall.

After much hubba-ba-loo(?) the winners are finally announced for the CB Ellis Urban Photographer of the Year award.

I didn't get the top prize but I did win the 0700 hour.  You can see the winners here.
It's the first year of this competition and it looks set to be a good one - if they can keep to a schedule! 
Here is my entry for the 0700 hour category.
 


I came across a group of volunteers on a cold cold misty morning cleaning wreckage
and rubbish out of the banks of the Thames.  It was nasty and laborious work and I'm
glad that I was there to stand by and take the pics. LOL... though I did manage to get
muddy a bit as I always do when there is mud around(love the stuff! - but the banks
reek).