LOL! Sorry no, this is not a composite. Here is the original uncropped and not edited:
What I did was a graduated filter to bring out the clouds a bit more, but not totally. Then I adjusted levels in photoshop to darken the whole image and bring the background where I wanted it, (or thought I did lol) and then masked them out of the levels adjustment and probably tinkered with the opacity. I lost the PS file because my PSC on my computer is wonky and it’s been randomly crashing in sleep mode -_- I just haven’t gotten around to ordering a new one.
I personally like the contrasty ones you guys have been doing, but my current teacher ( who I sort of feel is off his rocker but I’m trying to be a good girl and except his criticisms like I should) keeps yelling at me about too contrasty images so it’s made me terribly paranoid. And possibly a little twitchy. He did tell a newborn photographer in class ( who only does newborns, a few weeks old kind of babies) that she had to many sleeping babies in her portfolio… I dunno.