Hi Sandy, regarding correcting verticals, I was told about a freeware program called 'ShiftN' by pluckyfilly here on EPZ. As it was free, thought I'd try it, there was nothing to lose! It's a stand alone program, not a Photoshop plugin, and all you do is to open the program, click the 'Open' button and load your image, then click on the 'Automatic Correction' button, and that's it! It only takes seconds, and it corrects converging / diverging verticals, rotation errors and crops the image, all in one go. It's so simple and quick and I always use it on on my images that need correction. You can download the latest version from Cnet. My Norton Internet Security confirms that this safe, so it's not dodgy!
Anyway, a fine capture here, and very nicely processed to bring out the tones and textures
Trev

He is a very lovely little chappie, Sandra! Very nicely captured, and he deserves lots of votes.
As regards looking sharp, I think it can depend what software you're viewing your image with. I find that my images look softer than on EPZ when viewed full screen in Windows Picture & Fax Viewer (Windows XP) or in Windows Live PhotoGallery (Windows 7). When viewing full screen in my Elements Organiser they look much sharper.
I sharpen mine by duplicating the Layer, then selecting Filter>Other>High Pass and setting the radius to 5 pixels. This turns the Layer grey showing the outlines of the sharpened areas. You then need to set the Blending Mode to Soft Light - or even Overlay, for a stronger effect.
Hope this is of some help.
TrevB

Excellently captured, Alexa, timing and exposure are spot-on, and looks good to me.
If you feel there is lack of space in front of the gull, the easiest method is to select Canvas Size, ensure 'Relative' is ticked and enter around 2cm in the width, and to just increase it on the right, click the left Anchor arrow. As the sky is a uniform blue, it can be easily cloned over your extended border. Hope this helps!
Hope you're having a great Easter,
TrevB

A lovely splash of colour, Carol..and a very nice looking fountain, too - despite the small burnt-out areas.
What you could do in PS is to paint in some colour over those bright areas. Using the Eyedropper tool, select a nearby area of similar colour, then select the Brush tool, ensuring it's set to soft edged, and change the Mode (alongside the brush size at the top) from Normal to Darken, and reduce the Opacity to around 40%, then brush over the bright areas. By using Darken, it won't paint out any details or tones that may be there. Hope this helps!
TrevB

Yes, Jane, shooting through a window doesn't produce the best results. What I would do (if you can't open the window) would be to shoot on manual focus so the glass doesn't confuse the autofocus, and boosting the contrast & saturation helps in these instances. Nicely captured, however!
TrevB