Photoshop Questions

Ok, so I often take pictures that are too cool. Sometimes I like them that way, sometimes not. While I was waiting for my Photoshop, I often changed this in Picnik, which was fine. I usually just told it to automatically change the warmth, and left it at that. So, I tried to do that on Photoshop by putting a warming filter, and it did warm it up, but it seemed to change a few things. Whenever I try to change the colors using a filter, I am always disappointed in the eye color. Besides, it looked a little greenish. I had to put on a red filter in order to make it look more natural. Look at these two for example:

original

edited in Picnik with one button

edited in photoshop using a yellow warming filter and another red filter

I think the picnik one actually looks better, and it took a lot less effort. What is picnik doing that I am not doing in photoshop. I mean, I could fix the eye color by using a sponge, changing the color filter, and saturating just the eyes, and maybe tone down the read a bit, but maybe I'm just not doing it right. Still, it seems I'm doing a lot of work to try to make it look like the Picnik one. And anyway, what is the advantage of photoshop then? I know I have a LOT more control, but if I just need a quick warming effect, should I just use something like Picnik? Or is there something wrong with the Picnik one that I don't see?

Another quesiton--BW conversion. I tried it 4 ways. Three of them are the multi-step processes from this article. The other was my plain old desaturate and play with brightness/contrast on Digital Photo Professional. Can you tell which is which? I asked Jake which he liked best, and he chose my lame-o "flat" conversion. I am not seeing the depth vs. flat. I know it looks flat if you just desaturate and leave it at that. But do the layers really add a lot of depth? I mixed them up when I put them in, and now I'm not even sure which method is which.


SO, photo peoples, please tell me what I'm missing here. I have used PS extensively as a desktop publishing tool, and didn't do much photo editing besides crazy effects or fixes, so I'm new to actual photo editing.

Also, don't feel obligated to answer. Many times I just post these questions so as to remember them and see what I was working on for the future when I'm smarter and stuff.

As far as getting to know PS again, I've been making my way through the help. It is actually quite helpful.