Thanks for the responses.
I was trying to do something that goes against conventional wisdom, and see if an image with the histogram very far to the left, and almost no highlights, can work. I think the answer is no.
I had done what you suggest, as in the attached examples. What made me pull everything down, was that, if you let your eyes adjust to the dark flat image, it reproduced the atmosphere of the deep evening much better than the conventional renderings. And I liked it better. 24 hours later, I'm not sure at all.
Now I think the best version is probably the darker one of the two attached. But I'm not too fond of the image any more.
Should also note that the original image was underexposed, which made PP quite difficult. This is why pulling the exposure up too far messes up the colors somewhat.
TRSmith, yes I had pulled the sliders way down, and then back up until I thought posterization was no longer visible, that's where I had thought it looked best (but no longer do). Wish I had exposed more.
Streetshooter, very good point about the boat (it is a boat). In other photos that I took before the kids came into the scene, I had waited for the boat to come into just the right position, but when the kids arrived, it would have been better if it was further to the left, but what can one do
. I agree it needs to be made whiter, but I need to export to the dodge&burn plugin, and haven't yet bothered to do it.
"I also have a problem of getting lost in my pictures. I normally give 24 hours from saving to disk before getting an idea about the pix I've taken. I also find that what I think are not so good are the pix that get faved and used......"
Very true.