As noted, I didn't get to make the actual captures and the images I got to work with were not in RAW format. Doing the work on these images really demonstrated why you should always shoot RAW or at least RAW + JPG and delete the RAW files later if you think you will never use them. (As for me, I only shoot RAW and save everything except obvious mis-fires, and blunders.)
Even in this image, which picked up some issues when saving for a smaller image, you can see the skies breaking up. In another image whenever I pushed the sky enough to darken it to where I wanted it, I got visible banding. Sharpening becomes problematic and you can't push clarity without some unwanted effects. Never the less, this image printed beautifully at 8.5"x 25" and my sister was very pleased. As for the crow, I had to laugh when my sister said, "Nice job Photoshopping-in the crow." I didn't put it in, it was actually in two images in the stitch. I wondered if I'd get two crows in the final picture, but one of them, which was the smaller one, got cropped out.
I think this image goes to show that even with less than ideal material, when you have an image over 8,000 pixels wide, you ought to be able to get something out of it!
