Curvemeister Forum

Well you really know how to pick them Mike!

I did a number of renditions and am not happy with any of them - the trouble is what do we want to enhance at the expense of other areas.  That far island is just at the wrong point on the curves!

So in the end I think I did what you asked - I left the sky more or less alone and tried to get some colour and contrast into the rest of the image. 

If I was doing this picture for real, the reverse would be true and I'd put all the interest into the sky, even at the expense of a cast, along these sort of lines.

My head aches - can we have simpler problem! (only kidding)

There is always a danger, when adding a new example, that it will turn out to be more difficult than anticipated.  My preference was, as you suggest, to go for more action in the sky, even if that means making the lake darker.  I'll add some more hints along these lines to the suggestions.  We'll also be doing masking later, which will remove some of the difficulty, or at least shift it to another realm.

Okay - so perhaps this is more in line with what you were looking for - a modest compromise between the clouds, hills and foreground