Well, for some reason I was convinced this was running under Advanced Editing. So I did it all: levels and hue on the trees, contrast and blur on the water, levels and blur in the sky, etc. Two days later I realized the challenge was actually Basic, so I wrote the Site Council who DQ'ed the image. Will have to pay more attention next time :)
Other than that, it was really not scoring as good as I was hoping, hovering around 5.3 when I got it DQ'ed. Maybe because the boat is not sharp? Water was not perfectly still, so over a 30sec exposure the boat moved a bit... I got some nice comments though which I am very happy about.
Disqualification Details
You may use only Adjustment Layers (or their equivalent). An Adjustment Layer is a special type of layer containing no image data that lets you experiment with color and tonal adjustments without permanently modifying the pixels. Adjustment Layers must be applied in Normal mode.
You may use a cloning tool or small healing brush for the sole purpose of removing sensor dust or hot pixels. No other spot-editing is allowed.
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