two takes, one idea, works?

Saw this on my phone while I was out cjt and hoped I hadn't emptied my trash. Just got in and it's not in the trash. Going to eat lunch and will rework it after I finish but to answer your question, I used both. As I remember it the gradient alone didn't give me the results I wanted so I then used a brush to adjust.

Hope this helps, cjt .  Feel free to ask any questions that you may have as it's hard to explain.


After creating the composite I went back to the background layer to lighten the snow....see screen layer.
I then created a composite of those two layers and once again used a mask to keep what I wanted from the new image and the lightened snow from the background.  I also added a levels adj. layer mainly concentrating on the snow.

Since you will be working on your original images You probably won't have to worry about changing the red color of the lettering......I just did that as I was working with your screenshots.