New Canon T3i, pictures look out of focus

I'm new her, and new to the Dslr, but not to slr cameras, what I think I am learning is all of those eye popping photos I took with my old 35mm slr camera had nothing to do with me, but all to do with the one that processed my 35mm film.

For some reason I can not get a crystal clear picture, it's like every photo is blurred or out of focus, I use Photoshop Elements 10 (and the software that came with the camera) I have watched Youtube videos and tried some of the things they showed me, like take for example one video was on Sharpening, I tried the setting that he used 58, 1.1 42, and 50
the thing is I don't see any great deal of changes when I move the sliders, I have a HP Pavilion dv5-10 10 us PC laptop with windows vista 64 and a mat screen, video card is GeForce 9200M GS, could all of this be my problem, I have heard I need a Mac to really do photo editing, Is that true?

Here is a couple of photos, see if you can guess which picture is the one that I feel like doing.

Thanks

Are you using single point focus or autofocus? I had the same issue on my new 7D until I figured out how to switch it over to single point focus. Also - your second shot seems fine to me! Cute kid!

Fire0725 wrote in post #15057385
Are you using single point focus or autofocus? I had the same issue on my new 7D until I figured out how to switch it over to single point focus. Also - your second shot seems fine to me! Cute kid!

Thanks Fire0725 for your reply to my post.
Yes I am using auto focus and now that you mentioned it the little red lights are choosing more than one spot to focus on, will try manual focus next time.

That is my 7 month old great nephew and my little buddy. It's kinda hard to get him to look at the camera long enough tho.

DigitalDon wrote in post #15057404
Thanks Fire0725 for your reply to my post.
Yes I am using auto focus and now that you mentioned it the little red lights are choosing more than one spot to focus on, will try manual focus next time.

That is my 7 month old great nephew and my little buddy. It's kinda hard to get him to look at the camera long enough tho.

You don't have to necessarily manually focus, the problem is that you have all focus points selected. The camera then chooses what to focus on, which may often not be what you want. Select one focus point (usually center) and then you should get a lot more keepers.

goldboughtrue wrote in post #15057445
You don't have to necessarily manually focus, the problem is that you have all focus points selected. The camera then chooses what to focus on, which may often not be what you want. Select one focus point (usually center) and then you should get a lot more keepers.

Thanks goldboughtrue I will give that a try.

I was the king of focus problems on this forum until I started using autofocus set on center point only, and faster shutter speeds to alleviate camera shake issues. I am also learning better about sharpening in PP.

use AF single-point, shutter release half way down til AF locks, then recompose shot and push release into final position to take shot.

Thanks to all for your help, figured out how to set it to AF single-point and will use a tripod or higher shutter speed and see if I see any difference, will have to wait until my model visits again so I can compare what I have against the new settings.
Thanks