New to photography, messing with photoshop

[warnesey333]

I went to watch my dad race a classic car on Saturday at Silverstone and decided to take my girlfriends Canon g10 with me and take a few photos.

After forgetting to set it to RAW mode, these are a few that I managed to get and play about with in photoshop.

I'm new to the photography scene so any comments/suggestions are greatly appreciated.



Link: http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4027/4592646967_ed510dab88_b.jpg


Modifications:
Car selected, selection feathered, inverted
Guassian Blur 11.5
Exterior selection -> black and white
Car contrast enhanced
Small amount of Vignette for the borders







Link: http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4060/4593288036_d43ab24511_b.jpg


Modifications:
Unfortunately I didn't zoom enough when taking the picture so cropping has made it quite blurry
Contrast enhanced a bit
Small amount of Vignette for the borders
For those of you interested, this is a 1.8GTi







Link: http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3471/4593288030_1a3bf6dccc_b.jpg


Modifications:
Large amount of Vignette, maybe a bit too much tbh!
For those of you interested, this is a 1.6 with k-jet

[kdiz]

I try to stay away from photoshop as much as possible and use it mainly for slight touchups, sometimes i remove random artefacts that i didnt spot when taking the image, edit some lighting / saturation [not too much though].

It can be fun to do some stuff with it tho like Vignette and doing the colour / de-saturated areas kinda like you did your pic although I would have kept it unblurred personally  .

Remember you can use the camera in many different ways to do certain effects, things like focusing on the car whilst it's driving so the car is clear but the surroundings are blurred to give the impression of motion can all be done effectively and cleanly without the use of photoshop.

[warnesey333]

I try to stay away from photoshop as much as possible and use it mainly for slight touchups, sometimes i remove random artefacts that i didnt spot when taking the image, edit some lighting / saturation [not too much though].

It can be fun to do some stuff with it tho like Vignette and doing the colour / de-saturated areas kinda like you did your pic although I would have kept it unblurred personally  .

Remember you can use the camera in many different ways to do certain effects, things like focusing on the car whilst it's driving so the car is clear but the surroundings are blurred to give the impression of motion can all be done effectively and cleanly without the use of photoshop.

The main problem is learning how to use the camera I think.

I need to get use to the manual focus on it and not relay on all the automatic settings!