Spellbinding (+ Repost)

Brian, I've been within a few feet of that same spot. I can appreciate both the iconic nature and the what goes to make it up—the fog in the valleys below, the dark green foliage with some tree top light and most of all, the flame in the sky overall at sunset. This is a sweet, well taken picture! Which brings me not to a nit, but a question you might want to look into in your mind's eye: did you anticipate the sunset a bit, hence what looks on my monitor (also calibrated) as having a bit much yellow? Or did your processing make it so. Realizing that it is very much subjective gives me a feeling I might be over thinking it, but my wife, who has a much better color sense than I do had the same thought. Any way you size it, this is a great picture, with a lot of heart!

Phil,

I think you might be on to something.  There was naturally a lot of yellow in the sunset.  I looked at some of my unadjusted RAW files from just before and after this and there is definitely a lot of yellow.  However, I increased the color temperature in Lightroom during my RAW processing because I wasn't seeing much color in the fog.  It looked about right in Lightroom, but after the other adjustments I think the yellow got pushed a bit too far.  I added a color balance adjustment on top of the rest of my processing to push it back a little more toward blue and it looks better.  It's easy when you see the photo evolve incrementally during processing to overlook these things.  I guess I should have let it simmer overnight and come back to it tomorrow.  Thanks for the constructive comment! 

It's a beautiful scene and image, Bryan. The light is terrific and so are the colors. I like the light and color in the foreground trees as well. Yes, the image has a yellow cast, but it looks pretty natural to me. I don't see any difference between the original and the repost.

Very nice, Brian.  I'm with Scott, in not being able to tell much difference between the original and repost.  I think it looks very natural to me.  Lovely image.

Thanks for the feedback Scott and Gary.  The color balance adjustment is more pronounced in the RGB color space in PS when I toggle the adjustment, but the sRGB version that I posted here seems unchanged.  I would like to get this one printed so I will work on getting it dialed in.

I have stood on Clingmans dome several times, but I never had this kind of image opportunity. Nice composition and he light is sweet. I would expect some yellow because of the color in the clouds. 

Yep, and amazing sunset for sure.  I think the comp works nicely.  My eye, however, can't escape the sky.  I'm wondering aboug lightening up the trees or enhancing the texture within them to provide better balance to the strong sky.

Really nice image from this great park. My only suggestion would be to dodge the FG trees a little to balance the sky.