If we are back on sun-ups and sun-downs....

[davidedric]

These don't have Izzie's story line, but it was a spectacular sight. Sanibel island, Florida, January

Dave

[deetheturk]

Very nice Dave, beautiful skies!

[Shadowman]

Nicely captured, especially the fiery sky.

[Texas Dave]

Beautiful.

[chauncey]

There are those who would argue...and probably will, but...I am not a fan of crispy skies.

[IzzieK]

I kinda like #1 Dave...it looks more natural. The fiery is astounding but I like the texture and the foreground and everything that went with it in the first shot better.

[davidedric]

There are those who would argue...and probably will, but...I am not a fan of crispy skies.

That is a very good point, I will reconsider.

I'm also going to revisit the second - but honest, I don't think I boosted the colours very much

Dave

[Stagecoach]

Impressive skies in both Dave and well worth shooting.

From my own personal preference (built from spending too much time shooting skies over the sea) I feel that the most successful scenes are where the water compliments the sky either with reflective colour or texture. The problem being you only get what nature provides at that instant

[davidedric]

The problem being you only get what nature provides at that instant

Too true! For interest, this is the RAW as presented by Lightroom. I wanted to try to apply George Jardine's approach to the tone mapping. So far as I could see the main "problem" with the image was that there is missing detail in both the shadows and the highlights.I made no adjustments to any of the top sliders in Lightroom (WB, Tint, Exposure, Contrast). Instead, I went down to the next set and started with the Highlights slider - this expands the tones in the top third of the tone curve, compresses the middle third, and leaves the bottom third untouched. Basically, it brings out detail which was previously squashed into the brightest tones. Then I repeated that for the Shadows, which does the same to the bottom third. I then adjusted the white and black points to what I wanted using the Whites and Blacks sliders, and finally added a little Clarity and Vibrance, I expect others could do better of different!

Dave