Thanks, everyone, for playing and for your kind comments! I’ve very much enjoyed seeing the different results.
I’m posting my impressions for what they’re worth in two successive posts as there’s a user mention limit of 10.
That scene sounds wonderful! I feel deprived, not getting to see it.
Thanks. I guess by “warmth” you mean more than just colour temperature, but I thought I’d mention I usually try to use my ExpoDisc to set white balance in-camera. I think many see that as unnecessary, but I feel it gives me more confidence as I know I’m starting with it set “right”/balanced, meaning I only have to adjust balance, etc., if I’d like a particular effect rather than feeling I have to correct. I’m fairly certain that I didn’t make any hue/colour balance adjustments to this shot.
It was interesting to read your very descriptive detailing of your process! I like that there’s detail visible in the darker areas, but I feel that (on my display at least) the shadows in the foreground are a little washed out and unnatural looking relative to the rest of the image due to their lightness.
I like the overall balance of your first result after your work in GIMP a lot. Enfuse seems to be capable of some great, natural-looking results, and I plan to have a go with it on this shot. I’m not so keen on versions 2 and 3 as they seem rather flat to me. Your version 4 is very interesting; the only thing that I think stops the purple from working is the pink/purple sun centre. I’m thinking that if it were more white this version would pull off the purple!
@yteaot, the sky in your first version is very dramatic! It’s a shame some of the light portion to the right is clipped to white. It was really interesting for me to see the green in the fields in your second version; it’s probably not a direction I’ll go in as I want to preserve the feel of the time of day, but it’s a nice, fresh look.
@Adlatus, the sky in your version feels very painterly to me - nice! I feel the shadows in the foreground are a little too light to avoid seeming unnatural; I’d be interested to see it with that tweaked. Oh, you already did a second version with darker shadows in the foreground! I feel this works much better, and like this version quite a bit.