Which one, if any, and why?

[Mjollnir]

Eye of God #2, Cuyama Valley, NIK by tanngrisnir3, on Flickr


Eye of God, Cuyama Valley, NIK by tanngrisnir3, on Flickr

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

Burnt highlights kind of ruin both.

[RSL]

#1 seems less clobbered than #2 but I agree with Slobodan.

[Mjollnir]

Burnt highlights kind of ruin both.

Yeah, I know.  LR showed no clipped or burnt highlights in the histogram, but there you have it.   Trying to darken those areas yields only very unattractive brownish patches.

[Bob_B]

Try using LR's paintbrush tool with automask to tint the burnt white to a blue approaching the color of the sky. That might work.

[sierraman]

I agree No. #1

[bdosserman]

Definitely #1, but I'd crop off the top down to about 2:1 -- to me, the image is all about the darker clouds, the sun rays, and the hills in the distance, and the spot of blue is just a distraction from all that. Maybe I'm just crop-happy, but that's my take on it.

Brian

[stamper]

Layer Fill mode yellow. Blend mode multiply. Blend if, split sliders to target highlights and lower opacity till you get just a little yellow showing in the burnout highlights.

[francois]

I also vote for #1. The clipped areas are, in my opinion, less distracting in photo #2 but the hills and sky in #1 are much more interesting.