Tilt-shift photography + more

I've been playing around more with some photos using the tilt-shift effect in Photoshop. The results I got aren't ideal, mainly because I didn't take the photos with this editing in mind. But I did have fun playing around and will definitely look to take some photos with this editing method in the back of my mind. Here are the before and after shots:

With better original photos, the tilt-shift effect makes the photo almost look like a toy model.

Here's another photo I improved in Photoshop. I made a copy of the original, increased the exposure, and then layered it on the original. Then I used a gradient to only increase the exposure in a specific spot (where the corks are dangling). Finally, I slightly adjusted the hue and saturation of the photo:

Here are some photos that I just edited by cropping and adjusting hue/saturation using Aperture: