If half the sky was that dark I'd say it was too much, but as it is, it's not excessive and doesn't destroy the illusion for me. If it was a problem for me I would select it and de-contrast it somewhat and lift the shadows as well.

Lifting the shadows is usually a trouble-free way to add some subtle brightening without the selected area acquiring an unnatural glow (which is what a straight brightening can do), but with clouds they sometimes need softening as well. Negative Contrast (and perhaps negative Clarity as well) usually does that nicely.

I find that a lot with cloudy skies - Contrast and Clarity can add lots of drama but sometimes it causes problems and in that situation, going for soft skies is usually a better option. Alternatively the problem areas can be selected and given negative Contrast and negative Clarity, plus lifting the Shadows if needed, which will usually mitigate any unwanted effects of global adjustments.

As a general rule I'd say that where skies are concerned, softness is usually an OK option, provided you're happy to lose the drama that contrast and detail bring to the sky. I can't remember the last time I looked at a sky in a shot and thought "That's too soft". But over-contrasted or over-sharpened skies look just plain unnatural to my eye.

Skies are usually hazier than we realise because the effects of the haziness aren't obvious. When we do anything to dehaze skies they usually show improvement - which we want - but that often comes with side effects that we need to keep an eye on (clouds becoming too dark and solid or looking too jaggedy or grainy). My workflow improved when I realised the significant role that haze plays when optimising skies in PP.

I don't have the most recent version of Lightroom so I don't have Dehaze available via the Adjustments brush, but I suspect that it would be a useful tool for working on skies that have been selected using the brush. But it's important to know how to mitigate the unwanted effects of the Dehaze tool. Pushing and mitigating is the best way to optimise. I suspect that most skies could be improved with judicious use of the Dehaze tool as part of the workflow.

Hi Kathy,

I've attached two different images. The only difference is the first image, which I like the best, is more white balanced than the second. I did see that your main interest was the color in the sky so I backed off the WB which left more of the orange color cast. Here's what I did.

1) I reduced the highlights and brought up the shadows. I adjust the whites until I began to blow-out the sky and the backed off slightly. Finally, I increased dehaze to bring out more contrast in the sky. That was it for global adjustments.

2) Using the brush tool, I selected the trees and green plants. I opened the shadows a little more, shifted temp towards yellow and tint towards green. This, I felt, better matched the color of the trees with the color of the sky.

3) Using a second brush tool, I highlighted the trees again, and selected the highlights using the luminance range mask. After making my selection, I slightly increased exposure and added more yellow and green to the highlights.

4) Using a third brush tool, I highlighted the dark clouds on the left side of the sky. I increased the clarity to bring out a little more cloud detail.

5) Finally, I went back and made a small increase global contrast.

Not being there, I felt the main emphasis was to increase exposure and detail in the trees while matching the color cast of the sky.

Mike

To all who worked on this image for me, I do so appreciate your time and efforts. I have worked on this off and on over several days (took the advice to "sleep on it" for awhile). I've looked at some of the versions on my own, then hit reset and started over. Right now, this is my "final" version. I know it's dark, but it was a dark time of day. I wanted some of the silhouette effect to remain in the trees while offering a bit of detail for interest. I'm going to print this out and see how it looks on the page, then probably print it on metallic paper. If anyone sees a major problem here, I'd appreciate it if you'd let me know. And thanks again!