Entry to Dboontje Photo Contest "In search of the perfect photo"

@dboontje made this photo editing contest link and I thought there were some pretty solid arguments for photo editing, so I thought it would be fun to give it a go..!

So the Theme is Animals and the rules are to post a before and a after editing, with a short description on how and why.

So here we go.
I chose this photo of a wild marmot I took last summer. I am pretty pleased with this photo as it is, but I chose to play with it anyway. Anyway I am most pleased with how close I managed to get to a wild animal and how pretty she is posing in the picture :D

Before

I am no big photo editor, but I decided to try anyway! I used Photoshop to edit.
The photo is most definitely taken with the vivid film simulator. I usually like vivid colors, but I actually think they got a bit too aggressive in this one!
So I started with turning down the color saturation a good bit! Then I duplicated the layer and added a High Pass filter on the top one, and changed the occupacity to Soft light.. I remember I learned this technique somewhere down the road, I don't remember by who, but else I am no big connoisseur of photoshop filters! :S
I ended up adding a bit of vignette effect, and that's it..!

After

I am sure all you profs out there would do much better, but it's fun to try, wouldn't hurt getting a bit better at this stuff, since it's true, that you can actually edit the photo to look more how it was!