No problem in answering. My lack of hair is from chemotherapthy treatments for breast cancer.. my statement is I'm determined and not backing down..

1. Duplicate image on a new layer.
2. Sharpen to your taste (sharpening is often left to the last step, but I often violate that recommendation)
3. Duplicate again, but set mode to Screen to lighten the image.
4. Add a Hue/Saturation layer and move saturation to 0. This gives you a B/W image while retaining the color information, which you may want to manipulate separately to introduce contrast where adjacent colors have nearly the same grayscale values.
5. Add a Levels adjustment layer. Lighten the image as much as you want to bring out the area below the platform. This will "overexpose" the area on the platform.
6. Click in the Levels layer white image, draw a selection (lasso tool, whatever works for you) around the platform to the top of the image.
7. Make sure your background color is black and hit Delete. This will fill in the upper part of the Levels layer with black, and more importantly, will apply the Levels adjustment only to the area below the platform. You can lighten up the bench area by using the paint brush to paint white over the bench. If that makes it too light, undo it and lower the opacity of your brush.
8. Add a Curves adjustment layer. Use it to create a sort of S curve that gives you the dark/bright contrast range you want.
9. I went back to the top layer of the image (not any of the adjustment layers) and apply a Noise filter (Filter-> Noise_> Add noise...). I added more noise than I wanted, then lowered the opacity of that layer to let the layer below it show through.
10. Go back and forth between layers adjusting until you get the effects you're looking for.
11. Save image (with layers) if you think you want to go back and tweak your settings as a TIFF or PSD (Photoshop) file.
12. Flatten the image and save as a JPEG for a finished product.

I'm attaching a somewhat different version. But you get the idea. The reason for all the layering is that you can turn them on and off, go back and forth to adjust them to see how they interact, and if you quit and come back at a later date, the TIFF or PSD image still has all the pieces you want to work with.

This was all done in Photoshop CS2. It could definitely be done in GIMP or any later version of Photoshop. I'll take a pass on Photoshop Elements, Picasa or other programs I am not familiar with.

If you PM your E-mail address, I could send you the Photoshop file with all the layers.