People ask me ‘how did you get these colors and contrast? Was it really like you show it on a picture?’ I tell you what. There is no ‘real’ picture. Your brain always post-process what eyes see. In your mind you won’t get picture with white sky and black ground. Because from the very beginning of your life you know that sky is overbrighted and your brain got used to fix the balance. But you’re camera as fair as machine from the Matrix. Camera gets a raw results. Using photoshop you make your photos look real. In fact only you know ‘how it was’, so you can lie, lie and lie again. Just to make people feel what you want them to feel when they look at your pictures.

What I’ve done on that: Shadows & Highlights. Dog was almost completely re-drawn. Same with a hills on the background. I’ve added flares and change tone of the sky using Adjustment layers. I’ve also have made sand look plain with a Clone Tool. And so on…

Cheers.