The landing of shoes kicked off in anticipation of reaching the beach.

I love the idea - and I certainly love kicking off my shoes to get to the beach! But I'm wondering if there's a way to get more contrast, especially with the shadows? hmmm....

Very cool idea.
I would explore way of increasing the contrast of this.
If you need some ideas let me know!

I would love any suggestions as to how to accomplish more shadow - (I'm new with CS)- I used more than one LEVELS layer, and I think also used the ADJUSTMENTS/ Midtones. I didn't want the sand in the upper left to get too dark and gritty looking.

I seem to be having a discrepancy between what I see while working on the picture in CS, and how it ends up translating once uploaded.

Perhaps I'm not saving in a proper format for display? (I did Save for Web). Does B&W need special handling? Color settings were as follows:
Settings: North America General Purpose, Workspace was sRGB, Gray: dot grain 20%, Spot: dot grain 20%, (if this information helps).

Thanks in advance for any suggestions!

Very cool idea! Try the CURVES tool. You can even select certain areas, too, that you only want to adjust.

Once you've adjusted the curves the way you've wanted, you can also go to BLENDING PROPERTIES (right click on the layer for this option) and select LUMINOSITY. This will keep the changes from being so harsh on a b&w.

Ooo, thanks for the suggestion regarding curves... don't have much experience with curves...yet!

What is your suggested method for selecting these certain areas (shadows, I presume)? Would I then use a q mask to adjust them?

Not real familiar with a method for curves - scared! I can give it a try, and I never thought of luminosity blending...I will give it a try, and any other suggestions. Thanks!

Strongly suggest going to www.chromasia.com he has a tutorial on there (a free one) for adjusting levels and curves and it's all easy to understand if you're not very familiar with it!

Once you get the hang of it, you'll play with it all the time.

You can also select certain areas of the photo that you want to make a new layer by using the magic wand tool and hold the "alt" button on your keyboard - atleast the "alt" button on my keyboard...might be "ctrl" -- at any rate, it'll give you a plus sign on the magic wand icon instead of the regular crosshairs/mouse.

Nice picture. Good subject and composition.
You might consider 1/2 grade more contrast

nice idea and composition

A good idea and nice composition. More contrast ? I`m not sure.