Photoshop interlude - Balancing out uneven lighting in a photo

So while doing some "self service IT" as is our new company model yesterday, I found the HP standard software depository. Much to my surprise and delight, I found that HP holds licenses for some adobe software. 100% ok to install as long as it is on my work computer.

So... Hello Photoshop CS4. Wow, what a nice program. I wanted to try something out quick, so I used some of the HDR stuff I had learned to try and lighten up the shadows in a nice photo while preserving the colours and detail.

Basically, I wanted to balance out the light levels and preserve the image quality.

I started with this:
I made a copy of the photo that I lightened with cruves adjustments, then I made a new layer and pasted the darker image on top of the lighter.

Next I created a layer mask on the top, darker image and paster the lighter image into the mask.

Then I selected the lighter mask layer and added a gaussian blur filter. This preserved and darkened the parts of the photo in the sunlight.

Finally, I deleted all the parts of the mask that were in the shadowy part of the image.
And ended with this:
What do you think? do I have crazy photoshop skills now?

The whole thing only took about 5 min, but I am pretty satisfied with how the end image looks.