Thanks for pointing that out, Maggie. I had these images stored at higher resolution and I downsized them and saved them at a lower level to get under the 1-meg guideline for posting here. The last thing I did after downsizing was applying a little bit of sharpening before saving the files, which in hindsight was not necessary. I don't normally re-sharpen an image after downsizing so I don't remember why I did it this time. I did not notice the halo around the foreground rock in the first image until you mentioned 'halos'.
To reference Asher's comment about HDR.. these were not HDR images but I often achieve a similar effect by raising the shadows and lowering the highlights and sometimes applying a little bit of dehaze, when it appears to enhance the overall impact of the image. A true HDR image is different from what I do in that it involves digitally combining images shot at different exposures in order to capture a wider dynamic range than might be possible with a single exposure. I have not dabbled much into that because just scratching the surface left me with the conclusion that the result is not worth the extra effort involved. Perhaps I just don't know how to do it, but I have found that I am able to get results that please me personally, by employing the method I touched on above. So I don't see the need for additional manipulation. After all, the objective is to try to render as faithfully as possible, the image that we remember in our minds eye at the time the image was captured.
Also note that these are not recent images. I shot these while hiking in Smoky Mountains National Park with my cousin in May 2013. I have been revisiting some of my image archives during the pandemic and I have been posting an image or a series of images every day on a different website for the last 254 consecutive days. I started this over 8 months ago at the beginning of the shut down, offering a form of encouragement to give people something to look at while staying in and trying to keep themselves out of circulation to help slow the spread of the virus. Having been fortunate during my lifetime to travel to many parts of the world and capture memories photographically, I wanted to offer an opportunity for others to sort of travel the world virtually through my lens. This has been wildly popular and I have been the recipient of many gracious comments. Some of the images I have posted here the last few weeks are some that I also posted elsewhere over the last 8 months. However, I have to lower the resolution in order to post them here. Earlier this week I decided to pause on the daily image postings because with holidays approaching, there is much to do and I found myself spending a lot of time searching archives going back to 2003 in order to find a compelling image or series of images to post each day. I did not want to post just any old photo. As with most of my hobbies, I'm a perfectionist, and I never want to show anything I'm not proud of.
Maggie
