Before	After

The scene had tremendous potential. The light was a big problem though. The sun, wherever it was, had already set, and it was getting dark quickly. Regardless, I took the shot hoping that I'll be able to make it work.

First of all, this is what attracted me to the scene in the first place. You have an unusual mountain, a reflection of it and the sand reflecting the shape again. Couldn't ask for a better canvas.

The first problem was that there was no separation between foreground and background. Flat sky, flat sand, everything seems very compressed. So I darkened (yes, I went with a darker sky) the sky with an ND and added contrast. Lots of contrast. I also decided on a crop.

Then I converted the shot to B/W and painted back on a layer at low opacity. This gave me even more separation, and I also gained some of the depth. 

It was now time to introduce a bit of color separation. Usually this means cooling the foreground and warming up the background, but this scene had nothing warm to begin with. So I cooled the entire shot and then kept the change only for the background.

The photo started to look now close to what I had in mind. The composition in the foreground was very busy though. I therefore cleaned up the left side, and extended the line to the corner. I also decreased contrast on the background in order to get a nice transition between the mountain and its reflection.

Finished up with contrast in the mid-tones, and done.

You can find the bigger version here: http://www.brunovais.com/earth/h458c5df9#h458c5df9

Please let me know if you have any questions. The post-processing instruction page can be found here: http://www.brunovais.com/instruction

..laters!