"Alan Browne" wrote in message
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I'd bet it's blue sky burned white. Done similar with similar results.
I agree it could have been exposed lower and then boost the FG, otoh as
an example, I was shooting old steam locomotives (black) and to get
detail in those blacks boosting after the fact would have been very
noisy and muddy looking.

http://photo.net/photodb/photo?photo_id=6172566&size=lg
http://photo.net/photodb/photo?photo_id=6172415&size=lg

You can even see the greenery here is a bit washed out. In those shots
of this series where the sky is showing it is very pale blue to white
and difficult to bring out the blue in PS w/o it having a very
artificial look to it.

Thanks for pointing to those, Alan.

These shots look a little "artificial" and "processed" to me. The blacks
should be just a little blacker.

http://photo.net/photodb/photo?photo_id=6172554&size=lg

That's "blue sky" back there... (okay, this one was exposed about
another stop more than the the ones outside).

But if I saw blue sky there, I would think it quite strange. Having blue
sky clipped to white is correct and natural to me, for such a shot.
[]
That depends on what "correctly exposed" means for that image. If the
scene dynamic is beyond the sensor then the use of grads or multiple
exposures needs to be done if possible.

No, not "needs", but "is an option you might consider".

I have a video/slide-film background, so I may have a different view of
what's the best on-screen representation of an image. I rarely do prints.

Cheers,
David