sunset through the pines

I've photographed this historic roman ruin filled site many times,
and I'm always captivated by its scenic treasures. Previously written about before in Pines in the Mist.
Being a hill covered with these tall willowy umbrella pines, its often ravaged by the sudden cruel winds we get from the distant black mountains, and thus these trees tend to look a bit sorry for themselves!

This picture was taken about 20 mins from sunset, it was getting quite dark, and having my trusted polarizer fitted didn't help, next time, I'll shoot without it first!
This image is only 2/3rds of the original, the full edit can be seen on my flickr or Photoshelter.

To start processing I used a slight painterly effect, to remove the camera noise. I then used curves to lighten the black areas and merge.
The strong green sky tone was created by going to the top line of Photoshop - Image - Adjustments - Hue/Saturation.
And moving the slider so as to get the sky to turn a bright glowing grass green! I did this with two layers of the duplicated base image and then a normal blue layer on top to bring the green tones back into the trees.
I realize this could be quite confusing, so I'll show a screen-grab, so you'll see the crazy coloured layers I play with!

Background - normal
Base image copy - Luminosity @ 47%
Base image copy - Soft light @ 29 % Hue/Saturation - green sky
Base image copy - Soft light @ 29 % Hue/Saturation - green sky
Base image copy - color @ 36% Hue/Saturation - blue sky
Apple Blush - Overly @ 100 softly brushed from sky only
Apple Blush - Overly @ 19% softly brushed from sky only
Raw Linen - Soft Light @ 100 % softly half brushed from sky only
Iridescent brush - Soft Light @ 100 %

After the above, I merged all then duplicated, cloned out the messy bottom bushes and covered with grass. I then tweaked the brightness to lighten the black areas still more - right up to the CS4's limits!

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