puffy clouds... please cc

i'm not sure i like what i've done with these. they seem a bit on the over-processed side, but could use a little crits. thoughts?

1.

oh, and don't mind those dust spots, these were an older set and all of my pics had the same problem.

Clouds are clouds. I've done sooo many shots like these on long flights. I get super bored after a while with them. Basically, I process in a way to make them creative. Alternative processing, toning, weird ultra contrasty stuff.... I just experiment. The basic blue and white is fine too if thats what you are going after.

The blues seem a little over saturated to me. And the clouds a little contrasty. It depends on what you are going for with these though.

that's the problem. i don't know what i'm trying to accomplish here. just trying to make it a little more interesting is all.

http://gallery.soundvi​sionpassion.com/galler​y/3862736_EobvE

Check that out. I made that series of images with an infrared camera while on a plane. Its not clouds, but its still 40,000 feet up! I was bored and trying to find a way to be creative. Pictures on their own can sometimes be just the beginning for something else. Patterns, crops, anything that can be put together from several photos, etc... can be the door for some awesome images. Ya never know!

Maybe processed in black and white and then heavily dodged and burned to bring the eye to specific patterns that repeat over a series of images? Always be open to what is inside of a picture taken! You never know where they lead!

that's crazy! nice use of the clouds and effects to make something totally different. i wasn't sure quite what i was looking at!

Being a former pilot, I think that I might have a thousand cloud pictures (chromes, before the days of digital). I think that shooting clouds is a good way to work on understanding exposure because it is so easy to blow out the details in the bright areas. In this respect, you have done a super job of capturing details in the clouds. I love the great shot of virga in the first image. BTW, virga can produce severe dry weather microbursts so it can be an aviation hazard if flying a couple thousand feet beneath the cloud layer.

If you are shooting RAW and use ACR for post processing, then modifying the colors is easily done by tweaking the white balance.