Ladybird...

... floating

Final image on my Kinda Horrigans journal. The editing that went into that version is described below...

Minimal editing really. One of the main differences is that I've turned it 90 degrees anti-clockwise. I'm a bit conventional and like things to go from left to right generally so that your eye leads into the frame. Also, did a quick colour pop on it by using 'sharpen edges' and then three layers...

Hue/Saturation: +10 saturation
Brightness/Contrast: +10 contrast
Levels: moved the middle slider 10 to the right

Also upped the brightness by about 10 or so but used a black brush on a layer mask so that I could brighten the reds without blowing out the highlights too much. The layer masks thing sound a bit of a mystery - but all it is is a way of masking out the bits of your image where you don't want an effect to be. You use a black brush - set to whatever opacity you think is appropriate (always best to start subtle with a low percentage), and just paint on the white layer mask in the places where you don't want whatever that layer was set to do... to show.

Did a bit of dodging and burning using a blank layer and the black/white brushes with the blend mode set to overlay. Then, flattened the layers and saved. All done!

Tip of the Day*
Saw this handy article about 'back button autofocus' and it's worth a read!

* am always reading stuff about photography, so think I'll start including whatever I've read or learned about as a 'Tip of the Day' for my own reference if nothing else!