This is one of those images that owes its existence to the process of post-production, not any plan on my part – by which I mean that it evolved rather than being intentional. The original was shot using a 3 stop ND Grad – to balance the foreground and the sky – and I had intended to produce a much colder, more 'accurate' version than this one. The longer I worked on it though, the worse it got, so I decided to take a different approach; i.e. a sunset rather than a late afternoon shot.

If you're interested the original is here:

.../archives/the_light_show.php

Despite the major transformation the post-production was relatively straightforward; i.e. a few masked curves – one for the foreground and two for different arears of the sky – and some tweaking of the colour using another curve and the Selective Color tool. If you're interested you might want to take a look at my tutorials that cover these topics: Landscapes: creating dramatic skies and Toning Colour Images.

As always, I'd be interested to hear your thoughts.