What type of effects on these pics

[microfusion]

Wondering what type of effects could I use in CS4 to obtain pics like these? I'm new to photoshop and I'm working on my first site for my microwelding business. I really like the design of this particular site. Is it a good example to go off of?


http://www.superiorjt.com/

[wikahwoo]

To change colors and contrast, try playing around with Brightness/Contrast and Hue/Saturation.

Brightness/Contrast:
-in the top menu, click on Image, then Adjustments, and select "Brightness/Contrast"
-move the arrow under Brightness to change the brightness (pretty self-explanatory)
-move the arrow under Contrast to change the contrast (the lower you go, the blacker the blacks get and the darker all the other colors get; the higher you go, the opposite)
-try playing around with brightness and contrast together

In the photos on that website, a lot of what goes into a good photo is the camera and lens you use. But you can try to mimic it in Photoshop by lowering contrast and adding saturation.

Hue/Saturation:
-go to Images>Adjustments>Hue/Saturation, or click "Apple + U" on the keyboard
-with Master selected in the drop-down menu, play around with saturation and lightness.

Both of these tools work well together, so you may have to alter more than just a couple numbers. Other fun ones I like to use are Levels (Apple + L, or Images>Adjustments>Levels) and Curves (Images>Adjustments>Curves, or Apple + M).



Now as for the images on that superiorjt.com site, the color scheme is a bit outdated, but you can still make good-looking photos using these Photoshop tools. You could always just copy the layer of the photo or save it as a different file, so you can play with it as much as you want.