Cross Processing

I love to learn new things. I just learned about cross processing. Here is a good tutorial on it. Cross processing basically adds more contrast to already contrasty pictures - making them POP. In a nutshell, you take your picture, you apply a regular S curve to your RGB in curves. Then you apply an S curve to your red channel and your green channel. Finally, you apply an inverted S curve to your blue channel. And voila - it's cross processed. See the tutorial if that doesn't make sense to you. One, warning, you might want to make your curves slightly shallow or it may look over-processed. Adjust to your tastes. It's all a matter of tastes.

Here is my cross processed picture of a couple of turtles (at the BIRD sanctuary):

Here is my original. I also applied an unsharp mask to the photo and applied the rule of thirds to my photo as Alyssa so clearly explains in this tutorial.