Photo Manipulation

I prefer to chose photos from the internet because I find it more interesting if I modify other's snapshot. So in order for me to do the editing, I used www.picnik.com. The reason for that is that it is easy and very simple to use. I know that Adobe Photoshop is the most popular photo editor but I didn't use it because I only want the color and definition to enhance. However though, Adobe Photoshop is a great tool for editing.

FIRST PHOTO:
ORIGINAL:

This is the original photo that i grabbed from the internet. As you can see, it is very plain and dead. What i did is I enhance the background which happens to be the sunset and make it more red. This process is adjusting the saturation and temperature of the photo using the editor. I adjusted the saturation to 75% and I randomly adjusted the temperature until I got my desirable red color. The reason for that is I don't want it to look so red and I don't even want it to look so pale. I even adjusted the sharpness of the picture to have a higher definition. As you can see on the original, the rocks are not very clear. So what I did is I set the sharpness to 60% and a strength of 30%. To much sharpness gives me an effect of a cutout subject so I made it only 60%. Too less makes it even more worse than the original. Basically the editing is just a matter of playing around until you get the desired outcome. I think that there is no formula to follow when doing the editing. I know that it depends on the picture and the quality of the picture.
To get an idea of what I'm talking about, here is the edited picture that i made.

SECOND PHOTO:
ORIGINAL:

For the second photo I did, it is also from the internet. The editing i did for this one is not similar but I gave it a try. I'm imagining this picture as a scene in a not so classic movie. So what I did is I reduce the exposure a bit, adjusted the saturation for 10% and temperature for 40%. For the shadow, i just play around until i got my desired outcome. And i adjusted the contrast for -10%. The original photo doesn't have a problem at all. I just want to imagine it as a movie.

EDITED: