How to make foreground look more natural (Lightroom)

[Raddy]

I've been taking some classes on Lightroom with a local photographer so I decided to try and develop a picture that my girlfriend took on a trip out west. Here's the original:

And here's where I am so far:

The cliff on the left side looks decent to me, but for some reason the cliff on the right side looks fake, like it was pasted on to the picture, but I can't figure out why. I'm still cleaning up the halo between the cliff and the sky, but apart from that, any suggestions?

 

[DGMPhotography]

I think you went just a *bit* overboard lol



I just brought up the shadows and sharpness a bit, and lowered the highlights.

 

[Raddy]

Well, when you get new toys, it's tough not to want to play with all of them...

But thank you, that looks much better!

 

[jsecordphoto]

It's natural to go overboard with the sliders at first. In general a rule I teach is not to have your foreground brighter than your sky (unless it looked like that in person with sunlight breaking through dark clouds and hitting your foreground)

 

[jamescooper18]

The end result that you have got is looking pretty good to me. I would just suggest to lower the brightness a bit so that it doesn't look unnatural.