Love this sky. As a fellow user of DxO Optics Pro 9, I see some artifacts in the grass that makes believe that you raised the Shadow level just a touch too much; however, if I weren't a DxO user, I'd probably not notice it. Did you use DxO's PRIME noise reduction here. I would try it here. In this size, I'm not certain if I see some Luminance noise, but I think I do. PRIME does a good job, but I find that I usually apply less than the default, in order to preserve details.
Hey Bill. Nice scene and thanks for the back-info for us non-US citizens
I like the dynamic range you were able to capture (assuming it's a single exposure here?) - although a 2-exposure blend would probably have been my approach here.
The magenta in the water and sky bugs me - very strong and looks a bit unnatural - did you push the saturation/vibrance a bit too much?
I think it could do with some more midtone contrast and a hint of shadow recovery (but not too much).
The magenta in the water is the reflection from the sunset. I could enhance or lighten it to taste.
I used a CP filter when taking the photograph, and did a fair amount of saturation and vibrance enhancement in post, to create a quasi-HD, dramatic impact.
Here is the original capture, converted from raw to jpeg, to show my starting point in the post processing. As you can see, I also did some selective cyan desat on the missile to show its true color.
Glad to share some history, which I happen to know quite well. A long time ago I spent a year in Korea with a U.S. Army air defense artillery battalion that deployed Nike-Herules and Hawk missiles.