Just had to share

I was going to post about my experience taking a class in precious metal clay, and show you the jewelry I made that day, but I have to take some decent photos of them and in the meantime I couldn't resist sharing this glorious sunset with you.

 These photos, by the way, are NOT Photoshopped or color edited in any way.  The only editing I did outside of the camera was a simple crop around the edges.

How did I get these spectacular colors, you ask? 

 

 First of all, obviously, you need a beautiful sunset reflected in a lovely lake.  But just as important is the camera settings you choose.  I did NOT use manual camera settings for this, even though I am trying to use them as much as possible.  My camera (and probably yours, too) has 'scene' settings that include one for sunset and another for dusk.  These settings are selected to optimize the sunset with both exposure and color balance. The dusk setting is a gently warmer color balance, and the sunset setting has a more dramatic warmth.  They do not change what I saw, but they enhance it.  If you have these settings, use them!!!  Don't just hang out on the 'automatic' setting, but don't be so stuck on doing things yourself that you don't use what Nikon or Canon has put there to give you success.