Hi Deanna, It's been awhile since I have visited UHH but your thread caught my eye. I went back and reviewed your first frustrated thread so that I would have a better idea of your level of experience before I offered a comment.

The advice that I would offer to you is to get several books on light, lighting devices and their use. Study them until you are very familiar with the science of light.

Practice makes perfect is always good advice but it is perfect practice that makes perfect. Throwing some lights up and taking thousands of shots will not really teach you anything. If you get lucky and produce a few good shots you will not be able to duplicate them with any degree of regularity. That is what separates a true pro photographer from the hobbyist. A pro has to produce high quality on demand under varied conditions. Even though you are not a pro, my point is that the professional accomplishes their goal by having intimate knowledge of the science of light and then and only then do they attempt to apply this in an artistic way.

The accomplished photographers that read this will all agree that you can make some progress through the trial and error method and they did a lot of that themselves. Trial and error, however, is different than practice. Practice is being armed with the knowledge and correct technique and putting it to use over and over again. Attempting to figure out the concept of portrait lighting by trial and error is akin to practing your golf swing with your eyes closed. If you swing at enough balls you will occasionally hit a few and you might even get a good shot off occasionally but it will always result in limited and very inconsistent success.

I can see that you have an artistic eye. It is obvious that you have a photograph in mind when you are shooting and that is most of what it takes to be a good photographer, but seeing the photo is still only part of it. You need to be armed with the science to accomplish it. A book is the very best place to learn the science.

There is a site called
http://www.florabellacollection.com/
that has actions and tutorials for these photo effects.