MartinL

Omg, thx. That's why.

To reply on your first screenshot, I think the problem there is that you have "wet edges" ("bords humides") checked on the brush toolbar. This often gives you unwanted behavior of the brush when applying masks.

It can if that's what you want to do. But if there's nothing underneath its just blank "canvas" showing through, which is what seems to have happened to you. Apply it to the Shadows/Highlights layer. (Use the preview to see what is masked)

Remember there is  a luminosity range mask. There are more complicated ways but try that first.

Yep, I think so, too. You select a new brush and then you will be using that one. But there might be a small bug.
[ Off topic:  You can (double click on any brush on the list, to permanently set its  properties and behavior) link a tool in such settings dialog/window. In the "general" tab, last drop-down item. If you click to deploy that, you can set what tool gets triggered just when clicking on the brush of  the list. IE, if you want a  brush for cloning (you can have several for several ways of cloning, etc), you can do so, and clicking on the brush on the list will swap you to clone tool, in your cursor. Now, is not exactly what you asked, but might help you to make a workflow that works for you. ]
But what you mention might be a bug. Sometimes, when selecting a new brush from the brush list, it does not take the new brush, you keep painting with the one you were using before clicking another. This gets solved by just clicking again on it, or several times (just not as fast as double clicking, or you'd trigger the brush properties dialog).
The bug happens rarely (but often enough to replicate it in 2 minutes), often when having painted more than one stroke. And is (temporarily)  fixed how I said.

@Smee Again
Here how it looks like now. I didn't try the gradient tool for the HSL adjustment yet.
 

I saw that after my post. It was just weird to see little poles showing up as I was working on the image. I thought something was amiss on my end.

@Smee Again
Here how it looks like now. I didn't try the gradient tool for the HSL adjustment yet.
 

Big improvement.
To apply HSL to only the sky, use the HSL layer's mask.
Click on the HSL layer, then treat it like a layer mask. For your image's sky, you can probably get a pretty good selection with the selection brush. Fill the selection with a white to black gradient (white on top, black on bottom). Then deselect the area, and hit <CTR:> + I (I for Invert). Now double click on the HSL layer and adjust your colors as you wish. You also may want to experiment with the blend modes for the HSL layer as it can really make a difference. Remember that you can adjust the transparency of that HSL layer as weil. Quick try ...

Yeah, color choices are poor, but just to show that you can boost only what you want by using the masking ability of the adjustment layers.

Ok... I tried redoing the entire project. Not sure what else I can do. This time, I removed the windmills, the houses, the birds and a log.
Removed the haze. Added a clarity live filter. I increased the exposure for the mountain using a graduated tool (from the botom of the mountain to the sky). Added white balance. Lens correction filter. Added vibrance layer. Added luminosity/Contraste layer. I tried ading a HSL layer with no success (I couldn't increase the color of the sky without affecting the rest of the photo). There is still noise in the photo and I can't remove it.

Ended up with this version.
 

Ended up with this version.
 

Hi everyone. I haven't been very active photographically wise but I'll try to change that. I went in the woods a few days ago and I wanted to try my new Tamron 70-200mm G2 lens. So I found this small toad (I love landscape and wildlife photography) and tried to photograph it (I used my 70-200mm Tamron lens). It's not the best photo of a toad but I'm still satified with it. Let me know what you think because I still like getting advices from better photographers.
Here's what I did on this photo.
I played with the basic settings in the develop persona (exposure, noise reduction, clarity, etc). Because some elements were in focus and disturbing the eye away from the toad, I used a dept of field blur tool and I made sure to put the center of the tool on the eye of the toad. I changed the exposure of the background with the help of a gradiant tool. Added signature.  
 

This really good video is about woodland photography and spec. fungi.
 

The slant is natural. The bigger mushroom (the one in black and brown) grew that way and the smaller ones grew on after.

Oops lol thx for that.

Oops lol thx for that.

Oops lol thx for that.

Looks good to me but I would inpaint the aerial growing out of the squirrels head.

Yes, I would agree with that!
John

Thx you made me realize that. I think this is the best I can do about this photo. I did two seperate noise reduction here. One more extreme for the background and one less extreme for the squirrel only. So yeah no problems here but let me know what you think. Click on the photo for a better view.

This was natural light only indeed. I was very lucky with the light that day. In fact, the Nikon V1 doesn't even have a built in fill flash. As for the old knees... for me the lower back is a problem. I wouldn't think of digging a 1m deep hole for a picture! A camera with a tilt screen is a bonus for this type of photography and doesn't require acrobatics of yoga poses

A friend of mine is really into nature photography. In order to get his mushroom picture, he dug a manhole  of one meter deep next to a mushroom. He then could take the shot from the viewpoint below the mushroom. At the end of the day, he filled the hole, of course. But before he did that, he waited for hours until the light was just right. It took him a whole day to shoot this series, but in the end it made him win a photography contest.
When he told me about this, I got inspired and some weeks later, when I was on holiday in Spa, Belgium, I made these. I was very lucky with the light and with the natural geology of the area, which allowed me to go very low, without digging a hole in the ground. I used a very basic Nikon V1 with the 18.5mm f1.8 lens (equivalent to a standard lens). These are images straight from the camera. No work was done in post.
More shots of this trip can be seen here: https://flic.kr/s/aHsjZJSu8w
 

The scene is good. After watching for a couple of minutes,i felt : going closer, lowering view angle some more vertically, using larger aperture f2.8 or so, using 50 to 100 mm focal length . This is to get more details of fungus, more background blur. Decreasing ratio of subject foreground to background distance increases background blur more than obtained from aperture. In processing, I would have sharpened with unsharp / high pass for small details and then clarity filter also for emphasis of larger details on the fungus, reduce green color. some stone or wooden log ,I would use to support camera. Would have also attempted to use on camera flash by covering it with paper or so for fill below the fungus. Well, this is just one of many view points . I have noted with myself that many ideas do not come to mind when in the field due to lack of time but as I take more and more pictures, the judgement at field is improving. I take lesser shots of a scene now but think more on how the end result will be, what processing flow will be used, etc. Earlier,i used to click just like that with the scene over attracting the mind but after coming home the picture looks ordinary and editing was not able to bring the desired effect. Being a hobbyist with poor artistic sense and more technical interest, my ideas and suggestions will lack correctness and efficiency !
 

Oversharpen for any website posting - rule of thumb.
The back fungus is a bit soft but hells teeth you would need to up the ISO and have one or two f/stops to get that right (hard by hand). Other option is to focus on the back of the front subject which may(?) have dragged the back subject into the depth of field available.
Like it anyway