I didn't submit this photo because it's too dark and I can't lighten it without showing artifacts. I had to clone a lot of unwanted "sparks" around the water drip. They don't show up too much (at least on my monitor) when I darkened it which I think would be marked down for being underexposed.
Other than cloning or healing brush how could I clean out this image? I use Photoshop CS but not very proficient with it.
Here is the original straight off the camera (cropped)
Try duplicating the image layer, then applying a Gaussian blur of about 4-5 radius to that layer ( get it nice and blurry, but not just a big mush) then change the blend mode of the blurry layer to color.
