Playing with Photoshop

I've spent some time in the last month playing around with Photoshop. I have no idea what I'm doing and can't seem to find a good book that would teach me how to use it properly. Above is the photo I took that I used as my base photo. It is just an old barn on the side of the road that leads to my dad's place at the lake. I love it though. Sitting there looking at it, I can see from the edge of my vision the things that have happened here and it has been used. Such character they have.

Anyway, with this photo I played with the charcol tool: (It looks kind of otherworldly...)




I really like the way this one looks. On the next one I used the graphite pencil tool. I really love this one.




The last tweak I did to this photo was with the glowing edges tool. It looks kinda funky to me, but I like it.


I really want to find a book to give me some direction. If anyone has any suggestions I'd love to hear them. Also, I'd really love some feedback about what you think about the photos.

Blessings,
~*~