This guy has an interesting technique. He has a bunch of before and after shoots on flickr. Kinda of interesting to look at if you like trying different things.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/reginapagles/
On some of them he explains how he does it.

You can do some interesting stuff with some of the Topaz tools

Don

Has a lot of that "gritty" look everyone was raving about years ago.

I like it.

I don't know why but I like the look about it. It does have a gritty look about it and probably wouldn't sell in microstock, but after looking at the before and after shots, it really adds character to the photo, more so than just the plan portrait.

I totally loved the work, specially backgrounds in all of them. I believe for the best editing work first you must have picture with best background & appropriate light effects. And these pictures are the results from the same.