Just Before The Thunderstorm (View Larger)

I highly  pricer  you  bravery  to create  some dynamic  effect  of  this  very nice  photograph. The  sky  is  not  going well  with  the image  color balance, the  sky is  to  bright  blue  and  on the  horizon,  it is  burnt out  completely.  "If". . .   If  you added  the  sky,, you  have  to chose a different  one  and  darker,  not  so  bright  blue.  To  demonstrate  what  I  meant, I attaching  my version  to think about it.   And  when  you  add a layer  to  your  image, you  has  to be  very careful  to  eliminate  the  white  edges  where  the  pasted  image  bordering  the  selected  basic image,  so  you  can't see  those  artifacts.  If  you  wanted  to learn,   listen  my comments,  otherwise  just  read  those  "very nice"  and  "beautiful"  comments. One  more time,  it  is a very good  image I  would  work on it  more  to  make it  perfect. All this IMHO.

Cheers;  Bela

Una estupenda composicion con unas interesantes formaciones rocosas. No obstante estoy de acuerdo con Bela respecto a los tonos del cielo y a los bordes blancos que se aprecian.

Un cordial saludo -Tolo.

Hello Tanni. I agree with Bela to some extent. I actually think that the sky is not a composite, instead it is the actual sky, just blended in from a different exposure. The inconsistency lies in the white balance being pushed in two directions. I have played with that effect, but it can go too far and make the image appear out of balance. The white balance inconsistency is most noticeable where the red and blue are incongruous. As far as the artifact, looks like it could also be a result of over-sharpening. My suggestion is to mask out the sharpening along the horizon where it's not needed. There is much potential here for a natural looking landscape if that is what you want to portray. If not, then our comments are irrelevant. 

Thanks Bela, Tolo, and Mark for your good advices.  I'm working on fixing this image and repost in the near days.  Your feedback is greatly appreciated.

Tanni