Hey Everyone! I've been reading the forum for about three weeks now, and finally registered today.
I decided to make my first post in before and after because this is the thread that encouraged me to register.
As I'm incredibly new to photography (2 weeks), this shot was taken with a point and shoot (I think that's what you call it) knowing that there would be light pollution, but also knowing what I wanted for it. It's from my first "roll of film" as an aspiring photographer.
Before
I took it to photoshop CS2. I adjusted the shadows and highlights and midtone contrast.I also adjusted the color correction slide to bring out the green grass and orange leaves. Next I created a layer and brought down the brightness and upped the contrast a bit to bring out the branches against the basically white sky. I then erased the sky on the first layer and flattened the layers. Last step was to adjust the brightness slightly on the end product to better blend the two layers and cropped a little at the top and bottom to better frame the picture.
End Result
If you have any specific questions about the editing, or comments, please feel free.