Focusing of an Individual

I'm still learning to improve my skills in photo editing with CS3. And today I learn How to bring out the prominent feature in a portrait. Take this lady in the pic. Now you can do it with just putting everyone else black and white, but that is just plain simple. If you notice her body surrounding seems highlighted and the rest in blur and shadow. This is because I want viewers to focus on her. Now if you are just getting into photography then a Photoshop CS3 or CS2 is a must for you. For this picture I learn to use a lot of layer adjustment, adjusting the level (to darken & shadowed), curves (to lighten the lady) and Hue/saturation (to lessen the colour I don't want).

What I wanted was to retain the colour but make it a bit close to black and white, so as to give it a more natural look. I usually don't like to edit my picture but ever since I bought "What digital Camera" mags, found out lots of the pro photographer does a lot of editing, having inspired by them...gave it a go!