Just another reflection

This is more of an experiment than anything else. Your comments are

most welcome, thanks.

Has an HDR look, but a natural HDR appearance. Perhaps I'm seeing a slight halo of brighter sky along the mountain ridge, even more evident in the reflection. I know of some ways to work that out. Beyond that, I think it is an effective and successful landscape. I really like the palette, and of course, you can't go wrong with that mirrored symmetry! Oh, one more thing! I can't leave without pointing out the wonky horizon listing to the right. Easily fixed! Lovely work Jeff!!

Thanks Mark. I'm glad you came along to keep me honest. I did this late last night and managed to make both the mistakes that you pointed out. I am just coming to grips with blending and am yet to make a blend that I am completely happy with. Any suggestions from the master will be humbly received. Those haloes are driving me nuts and I don't know how to avoid them!

I'll fix the horizon and have another go at the blend.

Jeff, if you are making these blends by hand, I would imagine it would be very difficult, perhaps even with a Wacom tablet, to get a precise  blend along a sharp ridgeline.  If I were trying this technique, I'd be more inclined to select the sky with one of the PS selection tools and then simply cut the entire selection in order for the other layer to appear.  Even that has its difficulties, because the pixels right in the transition area (from sky to ridge) are often missed (at least in my experience) because they are slightly different, and it sometimes requiring adjusting the selection (expansion or contraction) by just a pixel or two.  I've found it very challenging to get a good selection in a scene like this, and I wish I knew how some folks do it.  I've seen ads for selection tools that can even pick up individual strands of someone's long hair, and that's hard for me to even comprehend.  Bottom line is that rather than blending by hand (if that's what you're doing), I'd try selecting and cutting as an alternative.

Thanks Steve. I have been blending by hand so far. I just discovered another method courtesy of LL using blurred layer masks which I will try. I have Fluid Mask which is a masking tool which I will try too. It can do very precise selections.

The problem that I see is that the blend line always looks wrong. It looks too sharp. I really want to master this as a life without grads has massive appeal. I can't see blending working for seascapes, particularly long exposures, but it would be great if that were the only use left for grads.

A propos of other conversations, I think that this is an OK image, no more, yet it is rating better than most of my recent stuff. It looks like splashy colour and drama is still a recipe for ratings success.

In all honesty Jeff, your hand blending is pretty good! Stephen called it right, however. Best to make an accurate selection of the sky and then drop in the sky. There are many other methods in that vein, but most important is to have a Wacom tablet so you can be more precise. When I make a selection, I might expand it by one pixel and then feather by two pixels. Once the layer mask has been applied and the sky has dropped in, then very careful hand blending can mitigate the rogue pixels along the horizon. I find that darkening the ridge is better than leaving a bright halo. Try this trick to clean this one up a little. Select the clone tool. Set it at about 80% opacity and then change the blend mode to darken. Sample the sky that is the right luminosity, then clone along the ridge, resampling when necessary. Because the blend mode is set to darken, it won't clone anything darker than the sample, so it will darken the halo without modifying the darker ridge. Make sure you use a large enough sample. Some practice and you will have that ridge (and reflection) looking natural. I have many more tricks, so after you have got the hang of that one, I will share some more!!

Mark, many thanks. That's exactly what I wanted to know. The haloes were bugging me. I have a Wacom tablet on order. It's the wireless model. I couldn't bear the thought of another cable. 

In the meantime, I discovered a layering technique at LuLa which worked really well on this image. I have just replaced so it should show up somewhere along the line. It uses a gaussian blur. The recommended amount of 40 was way too much. I ended up closer to 1 but it gives a much cleaner and natural looking edge.

I have a few others that I will practice on tonight. Thanks again.

Good reflections and tones! I like it!