Twisted

On a glum kind of day by all accounts, my idea for this shot was these bare trees emanating out of the reeds, leaning outwards and featuring the darker twisted trunk in the centre. The sky was not all that interesting, but did have some variation in it, but was, as usual, brighter than the trees.

No problem I thought, just bracket the shot and combine in LR. Not so easy - the sky had virtually no detail to work with. So I tried PS, but the problem is how to select the sky around all the branches and twigs. I did a bit of research and decided to use BlendIf with a layer mask to isolate the adjustment to the sky.

Perhaps not the most interesting image I've produced, but a learning opportunity nevertheless. I wish now I had moved slightly right to give the main trunk its own space.