well I finally start to understand adobe lightroom and discovered the greatest feature ever, the exposure brush. Basically you can lighten,darken parts of a pictures with the touch of a brush. The effects are quite amaizing.

For example, before:



and after adjustments and partial desaturation using exposure brush + reducing the exposure in some parts



so you need photoshop CS3/gimp less and less these days, thanks to photoshop light room.