fotonz

Thanks for your comment. Yes I generally prefer ones with a few scattered high clouds behind the mountain. Shooting this mountain is a bit difficult because if it isn't completely hidden in cloud, the sky behind the mountain is usually a clear blue sky or completely overcast. I live about 25km (16miles) from the summit and have a good view of this volcano from home so I am always checking to see if the weather looks interesting.

Although the sky is bland the thing I like about this picture is the simplicity of its elements and the contrast between the blue and green and contrast between the white and grey.

Shots like this often suffer from a (perhaps unpleasant) blue cast in the snow on the shaded side of the mountain (the snow on the shaded side reflects the blue from the sky). I reduced the blue in the shaded snow by one click of the Magic Wand on the blue sky, inverted the selection and then a Hue/Saturation adjustment layer to reduce the Blue saturation. I also bumped up the saturation and lightness of the Green a bit (affecting the hill). I did nothing to the sky. The reduction in the blue saturation probably explains your ``atmosphere'' comment, although the shot didn't suffer from any atmospheric haze (only the blue cast) even though I was 15.2km (9.5miles) from the summit.