Frog, it could be that since you get a lot more clouds and general haze in WA that the environmental contrast is lower than in the semi-desert of the southwest (actually - more like real desert!). Try some night shots. You will see a lot of ops then.

Rob, seems a little extreme there dontcha think? But it's all part of learning. I can post the original 5 images at 800 pix if you would like to try an expt or two. Let me know.

Bob, and I am a novice to PS. I mostly use Corel products, really need to sit down and learn PS instead of just messing with it (there's plenty of tutorials out there), so I really don't know about Shadow Protect. But I assume that you can only go so far with that since the latitude of digital is small. However - you may be OK with RAW which supposedly has a lot more info stored (smaller increments in color and brightness, since it has many more bits). I can post the originals and you can try it and let us know!?

G