With a Graduated Neutral Density filter on my Cokin filter system, I exposed the scene nine times at f/22 using 0.5 exposure compensation increments -2 to +2. Major steps included:
o Combining those images using HDR in CS2
o Adjusted using Local Adaptation
o Neat Image
o Cropped
o Created three adjustment layers that I tweaked individually (from saturation to hue to sharpness).
o Resize
o Flattened
o Smart Sharpen
o Save for web
I'm hoping this will come in between 5.0 and 5.5.
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Awesome processing, I do think a closer crop on the bottom about 25% of the shot may have made it a stronger image, IMHO, very nice though, love the sky!
Back to comment: You found a very pleasing landscape challenge subject with exceptional lighting. IMHO the composition of your image suffers from the square crop you choose. There is a lot of negative space at the top and bottom that doesn't really add to the composition. A more traditional landscape crop (4x6 or 5x7 ratio) would help considerably. I would suggest letting the slope of the rock formation on the left side intercept the lower left hand corner of the crop. This will provide a very strong, diagonal leading line to the boulder at the top of the formation. This image also looks a little soft. Did you remember to sharpen a little bit after downsizing the image for the challenge? 7
I love the sky in this shot. Great colour contrast between the shrubs and the rocks. The rocks look a bit blurry, but perhaps that's their texture. Nice shot.
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