Painted Desert

[JP Bruce]

A little early. Canon 40D, 17-85, f9, 1/80
I messed up and camera was on program mode.

[Alfred Forns]

Hi JP I like the composition very much The layers are very effective Not sure about the shadows? They seem to unbalance the image

Would try boosting contrast with selective color and adding black Particularly the sky !!!

[Robert Amoruso]

JP,

I used Shadow/Highlight to open up the shadows. I did a selection on the sky and added black to the white and neutral channels using selective color I then selected the sky again and using the high contrast preset in PSCS3's curves adjustment, pump up the sky contrast. The shadows are lacking contrast but in Shadows/Highlights you can use the mid-tone slider to increase those.

In the original I would suggest that you process the image in ACR and use fill light to open up the shadows then do the other manipulations in PSCS.