Thanks for all your visits --most not yet returned by me! A class I am taking ends tomorrow and I have one more paper to write...
Playing with the free trial of alien skin for the plugins theme in sandbox; in addition to the presets, I am thoroughly enjoying have this kind of control over the color balance when converting to black and white. Also, there is a control labeled "clarity" I have never seen in GIMP... will have to learn what it does.
Beautiful! I love your processing. If the "clarity" control in GIMP is like the one in Lightroom, bumping up the clarity in this photo might make the clouds pop more here. It's great for bringing out details in BW. Good luck finishing your class!