GIMP: Vignetting

This post is inspired by this photo (clicking the image will bring you to the author's Flickr page) and this post on Digital Photography School.

What a stunning picture! The horse seems to be frozen mid-flight, and there is a sense of speed. Look closer and you'll notice that there is a halo effect around the horse which further makes the horse stand out from the background.

Using GIMP, I also strived to the same with this originally drab picture of Sarah:

Steps:
1. Correct levels, enhance sharpness etc of the image.
2. Duplicate the layer to create a copy.
3. On the top layer: add a layer mask.
4. Again on the top layer: lasso around the subject and choose a HIGH value for feathering.
5. Invert selection.
6. Paint black into the selection.
Now on the bottom layer (i.e the background layer):
7. Gaussian blur the picture for a depth of field effect.
8. Now, again manipulating levels: darken the picture.
That's it!

Here is the end result:

Any comments or suggestions? (I'm looking mostly at Ikelah here :) The original tutorial could be found here at Gimpguru.org.

ps.
I'm currently on the start of my holiday, and for some unknown reason I'm heavy on the geeky postings. I've been spending the holiday so far catching up on reading on Linux and delving deeper into SUSE Linux, learning GIMP by following tutorials, and finishing books I'm currently reading. No wonder the geek scale(tm) is off the charts!

pps.
We're not travelling much this time as my parents are coming soon (in a week's time), so I suppose we're saving energy for our travels with them.