The Wrath of God

This is a shot I took in France a couple of years ago. I reprocessed it over the weekend, and I'm much happier with the result. The older version was processed on an older computer - with an inferior monitor - and I have a few new PS techniques in my repertoire now, as well. The stormy sky was so amazing that day, and it was difficult to bring out the spectacular beauty without destroying the rest of the image. So - here it is - new and improved... The Wrath of God.

Processing the shot was difficult because I was dealing with a broad range of light. The shadows in the foreground were deep, but the highlight area of the sky was bright, filtered sunlight. In order to blend the image satisfactorily, I needed to process the original RAW file twice. First, I processed the foreground - making sure I had good detail in my shadows.The sky was relatively easy to process separately, since it was so dramatic on it's own. Combining the two exposures was more difficult. I layered the two images and then created a complex mask that allowed the two exposures to share the final image without creating halos or other distractions. What do you think?