Fire dance in Yellowstone w/REPOST#2

I was just up in Yellowstone but have already forgotten which pool this is -- Dean? Middle Geyser Basin, to the right of Grand Prismatic. Opal Pool maybe? Any & all critiques welcome. I'm still on the road, so can't see straight yet....

Almost epic. I would suggest lightening up the top half, it looks too dark.

what Todd said--id also crop a bit off the top for thirds. Cool shot.

I think that is Turquoise Pool. Opal has a little less vegetation around it. Love the sun star Monika and I think the suggestions above are right on. If you are using a GND filter watch your transition line very closely. Nice work.

Here's another version. Is it too far on the reds/warmth?
Dean, yes, I was using a soft stop GND, which is why the sky was so dark. I was trying to not be totally blinded by the sun...

Much, much better. The red is just a bit strong on the background grass. When you can I would clone out a few of those sun flares. Looks good.

I really like the sunstar and the fog on the lake. It looks like your graduated neutral density filter has a rather abrupt transition. You might want to consider getting one with a more gentle transition. I'd rotate this a little to the left to make the trees stand a little more straight and then try to lighten up the area around the trees as well. This scene has a lot of potential. You're off to a good start. The hardest thing is often finding a good composition with good lighting and you definitely found that.

This has been great -- thanks a lot, guys! I guess even clear, boring skies can have their moments :-) Try this one on for size. And who do you think makes ND grads with a gentler transition?

The last repost is the one! A gorgeous scene, and you handled the wide dynamic range very well indeed.

Thanks to all of you for your encouragement and guidance, painful as it may have been through some of the stages. I saw Pam's reply in another post about moving the ND grads to blur the transition line &, since I hand hold mine, I'll try that.

Definitely the last repost has it right. Beautiful image.