Silhouette first try

[GooniesNeverSayDie11]

If you meter the sky, the meter will think there is excessive light for the exposure ( although its more of determining a neutral gray, but we will just go with this explanation to make it easier to understand ). That is the point of metering the sky. It makes the shutter speed faster than it would be if metering the scene overall. So it causes the camera to underexpose the object you are trying to silhouette. The opposite would be trying to expose for the tree and blowing out the entire sky. See Sabrina's port for an example of that technique ( HAHA just busting your stones Sabrina, I know everyone gives you a hard time ). Mirroring the image was a very good idea to fix the problem however, I would advice doing some extra cloning around the tree and tree line, just so everything doesn't LOOK mirrored. Clining is much easier when the bulk of your subject is a big black blob. Next time on the original shot, try a lower angle to get more tree and less of the other crap around it. The main point though which was already touched on, is that you need to have an interesting and easily identifiable shape as a silhouette. Remember, your subject is NOT the sky, its the object that is silhouetted.

 

[GooniesNeverSayDie11]

Schwetty, the Avatar nearly made me piss myself.