Hmmm...I went too far methinks

In an attempt to save a blown out sky (I liked the long exposure on the water and wanted to try to save it) I think I've gone too far, but couldn't be bothered "fixing" it anymore.

 

I produced two 16-bit TIFs with ACR, 1 exposed for the ground and 1 exposed for the sky (sort of). Then pushed them through the CS3 HDR function, applied a local adaptation curve, did a little dodging/burning on the resultant 16-bit image, added a masked tone curve to brighten the rocks, added another masked tone curve to try to save to save a little more of the sky, played with the colour hue/saturation a little across the entire frame, removed a few spots in the sky, threw on a quick high pass filtered layer and saved it to JPG.

 

I've spent too long on a lost cause anyway, so while I don't like overcooked HDRs (99% of my HDRs you probably couldn't even tell they were HDR), I've had enough of this one, so.....love it or leave it. I'm over it.

 

Nikon D50

Tokina 12-24mm f/4 (at 12mm)

RAW, ISO200

166sec @ f/11

Photoshop CS3, local adaptation

Done