Tried some PP- any good?

[Turnerea]

This is my first serious attempt at trying to fix up one of my images- I'm sure much to learn.

I played with hue/saturation, cropped it down and cloned some hiking poles out of her hands that were a bit distracting considering they were bright orange. I also played with the curve, but only for the sky portion, as when I looked at what an S curve would do, it seemed to make the foreground too dark, and sky too washed out. None of my photos really seem to be benefited by an S curve, as my sky is always a bit light to start off with- is this common?

What do you think?

I was going to post the original and edited version, but realized that I saved over the original... so hopefully some experts out here can tell what I've done wrong with just the finished product...

 

[Twinney]

It looks nice, but her hands do look...blurred and off, JMO.

 

[Raze]

Never work off of an orginal - copy, copy, copy! (just never open and save as a jpeg as you will lose quality each time you save).
I think we have all made this mistake
It looks ok to me only I'd try to lighten it up, it looks alittle dark.

 

[DRoberts]

Depending on what program you are using for your PP there is limited work you can do with this photo.
But for starters, one thing that it needs is brightened a bit. After that you can work with color corrections and color burns to get the desired effect.
This is some simple playing around I did.
1. Levels - Using this you can do your initial brighten and enhancment.
2. Shadows/Highlights - can give more of a "pop" to certain parts of the photo.
3. Color Burn - gives an overall richer tone.
4. Warm Effect 81 - creates a more natural effect after your other manipulations.
5. Cloning - After everything is said and done there may be parts of your background that have become blown out or to dark. Cloning them back in at various opacities can restore them to a more natural look without affecting your desired changes

I saved this alittle brite to compensate for the jpg squash, it turned out a little briter than I figured it would.