Mastering Photoshop

I was the lucky recipient of Photoshop CS4 last year for my birthday and have been sitting here afraid of it.  Like, REALLY afraid.  I'm not sure if it's because I am NOT in ANY WAY a good photographer.  I don't like to pretend I am when I'm not.  I am practicing more with my camera and actually reading the manual like a good little DSLR owner should.  All that means is I am getting better at composing my shots but I still have a lot of work to do.  However, Photoshop.  It's like the elephant in the room for me.  It's a robust program and has all these bells and whistles and "secret passageways behind false walls" to making your photos look good, if not great.  So its totally normal that it's scary, right?  RIGHT?

I have vowed to myself (and my husband because he spent some good coin on the program) to learn how to use it.  And that's why I love the internet.  There are so many great tutorials out there.  This one  really helped me understand the basics of patching and color adjustments.   It's definitely a long learning process and I get why people take classes on Photoshop.  Do you know of any great tutorials out there for Photoshop?  If so, send 'em my way.

Here is my first attempt at major post-processing:

SOOC (or Straight-Out-Of-Camera)

Lightly edited with Picasa.

Edited in Photoshop using a mix of a few different tutorials.  This is a HIGHLY processed photo so it's not meant to look totally "realistic".  Personally, I like this look but some may not.

Give me a heads up if you're planning to stop by my house anytime in the next few weeks...I can't promise my house will be cleaned while I tackle this project and that would be rather embarrassing.