Filter + photoshop = good!

I was a little disappointed with this image as it stood in the last post. The sunrise on the cliffs lacked vibrancy and the area in shadow in the gorge I felt was too dark. Here is the same image with the following changes made:

- applied these changes in raw: brighten exposure, slight increase in colour temperature, increased vibrancy, reduce vignetting
- cropped top of pic to reduce amount of dull sky
- hand blended two different processed raws (one underexposed and the other with the changes listed above) to bring out the texture in the sky
- applied sharpening (unsharp mask) to entire image

Of course, I couldn't submit this to a competition that requires minimal editing, but overall I think the image is vastly improved without going too far as to look over processed (although I may change my mind on that after a day or two). By going ahead with the photoshop editing, I probably sound like Ive contradicted my last post a little. However, the blending process I undertook would have been far more difficult (to get seamless) had I not used a GND filter and I think, for my photography at least, there is definitely a role for both techniques.