Between mundane tasks like work and exercise I try to entertain myself by studying PS books and navigating the mental fog to apply new techniques for image manipulation.
My most recent “new” technique are the brushes in Camera RAW.
Here is an image in its untouched state: 
And here is the finished version.
After opening the image in Camera RAW and hitting “auto” for the exposure setting almost all the additional changes were made with the brushes, altering saturation, clarity, contrast and exposure on various sections, one at a time.
Its a new way to bring out colors and textures. The image is taken at Point of the Arches, Olympic National Park.
North Western Images - photos by Andy Porter 
it’s a lovely edit of a great shot…. beautiful depth
Wow, this article is pleasant, my younger sister
is analyzing these kinds of things, so I am going to convey her.
The edited photo looks great! I’m still trying to grasp how to edit using RAW.
I found the basic controls rather easy and was using them for a while and then found a book/magazine called “Photo Editing – A guide for beginners” at Barnes and Noble and that has open my eyes immensely, now I off into a whole new world! Of course the thing with Photoshop is that it seems that no matter how much I know there is always like 1,000 time more to know!!
I’ll have to check out that book! I’m completely self taught at editing and don’t find Photoshop to be intuitive. Maybe the book will make a light bulb go off for me!
Try some video tutorials, they make it easy! Look for some about Manipulating the images in Photoshop Camera Raw.