Before and after. please critique!

I live in japan, and I have been meaning to shoot this tree for months. I drive by it all the time and love the way it looks. I got time today, so here it is, before and after.

Do you like the treatment, should i do something different, or do you want to have a go at it? any comments and editing are encouraged.

TY!

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pretty cool looking tree, here's my take on it anyways...

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Mike: I like how you remastered your tree. Now it have more heavenly look. Like standing far above clouds, somwhere high.

dam mike. Very interesting tree in the 2 photo.

I really like your second shot- gives it a nice sense of solitude. I wasn't sure if you wanted it there or not, but there is a shadow on the ground to the left of the tree from a tree you removed. You really did an awesome job with the sky!

Beautiful shot....I really like what you've done in the PP.

Wow guys thanks for the responses. many of my posts don't get so many hits. I appreciate it.
TY also for catching that shadow, ill definately knock it out of the original. (Mr.E)
All i can say is that those layer masks and blending are some very powerful tools.

Anyone else? anyone good with off-the-wall abstract processes?

I really like what you did with it.. looks awesome.. would never know if you hadn't shown the original

Mike:

I like how you dumped all the other folliage.

There's still noise in the sky ... maybe Noise Ninja would take care of that.

Awsome tree! Boy, I'd want to photo that thing for an hour! You know, until the perfect angle came to mind (although you may have found that). Your original looks a tad over-exposed. Maybe exposure bracketing then blending them together would even increase the impact.

What were your treatments?

I added a hue/saturation layer, and tuned and blended it... same with a contrast layer... of course cloned out the foliage with a hard brush, and then went over the sky with a soft clone tool to blend. just a touch (the tiniest bit) of USM, and canvas size to add the quick border.

I like painting out part of the layer masks to only apply the hue to certain areas that need it.

The best part is that the whole thing was literally about 12-15 minutes, not too bad. The layer masks make it fast.