Just curious to know if anyone else has ever done, or had need to edit someone else's photos?

Seems a highly unlikely scenario so I'll quickly explain what made me ask.

Back in 2006 my wife and I got married and neither of us were particularly "into photography" and admittedly we probably looked more at the price than at the quality of the photographer we hired. Which is not to say they were bad as such. We were always happy enough with the snaps. Until recently, when my brother got married last year and we finally saw his album up in Port Macquarie the other day. Absolutely stunning, to be honest. And it got me thinking how I, after all these years, wish our photos were better.

Always thought it is what it is, can't turn back time... what's done is done. UNTIL!

In one of the last threads I was posting in here before my life got so ridiculously busy, someone (Jesus?) recommended I buy the best book in the world - a Scott Kelby book on Photoshop CS5. Because I have been so stupidly busy with work and had little time for anything else, I have not been able to put a lot of the book into practice, but I have read most of it during lunch breaks and stopped traffic interludes. And after a random, off the cuff comment from my wife a week ago, I thought that I could try to "fix" our wedding album!

When we got our photos we got the album and the JPEGs. So with a free moment on the weekend, I had a look through the photos and played with 2 shots, using a few of the new techniques I learnt from the book. And not to be a tool, but I thought they came up 100% better than the originals after a little fiddle.

For one thing, there is NO straightening or cropping of the shots AT ALL, but there's also nothing "special" either. I can appreciate that they're just nice photos capturing a beautiful day, but when I saw my brother's album and what a little pizazz can do to the shots... I had to try it myself.

So, long story short - I've decided to redo a handful of the best shots from our album and try to get a more exciting wedding album. A bit of blurring of backgrounds, softening skin, some artistic vignetting, adding something to the consistently blown out skies, the addition of some b&w (of which there was none)... all relatively little things, but it looks like they might well save some of these photos!

Anyone ever done such a thing with other people's photos?