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Below is the original jpeg file that was suggested to work with.

(copyright by @llllll1ll )

And this is what I came up to (clickable):

And this was my route.

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(Forgot to mention: I used PS and nothing except it. To retrace all my steps, you will need Photoshop version 2021 or roughly comparable).

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I made a copy of the background layer, and adjust layer properties to 'Overlay'
This way I am getting images contrasts shamelessly higher. I dont care about the darks!

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...but I should care about the lights, that became overexposed.
So, I make a quick selection (the sky area) to compensate the over-exposition of lights.

Thus, upper part of the image stayed intact (as it was in original). I merge the adjusted layers into a single layer:

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I add a new layer and fill it with gradient fill, as you see in a picture above, consisting of ochre yellow and copper blue-green colours. Yellow goes matching with the sky, blue goes down to match color-less hi-contrast dark shadows.

Now I adjust layer properties to 'Difference'. What does it means? It is sort of 'Subtract' action (but not exactly the said 'Subtract' )

What does difference layer do in Photoshop?
As the description implies, the difference blend mode subtracts the pixels of the base and blend layers and the result is the greater brightness value. Well, when you subtract two pixels with the same value, the result is black. This makes it very easy to see where images are aligned in Photoshop.

It is hard to put in words -> the picture itself will better explain it!
Below: result of blending this colourful gradient with what we got at Step 2.

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Now let me make a step aside: below I created a version that will show the result of layers mixing with 'Subtraction' effect, instead of 'Difference' effect. Feel the difference. This is definitely not what I wanted to finish with, it is rather ruining of a picture than benefitting it with some nice finishing.

One more experiment. Now I changed the blending settings to 'Darken' effect, and look what we have now:

This experiment brought me the idea to change the gradient itself; I simply turned it 180 degrees clockwise, so now I put blue end on the sky and yellow end on the sea / land.

Voyla!

This is what I like... OK, I like both these versions better than the original photo. Depending on the task (possibly design of something...), I could use either one or another. Now I have to decide which one I will sent to participate in the contest... Ok, I desided: the 1st one (which I initially intended to get). Just along the way, I acquired an interesting by-product. Nice!

Hope you enjoyed this little basic guide how not to ruin your image...
And it became a useful knowledge to you. See you next time!

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Thanks for visiting my blog!