Forrest sunset

First, among the myriads of deviations in my devwatch this one hit my eye at once because: The scene is different to the shots taken somewhere on a beach, on a peer etc. The forest foreground adds a crucial element to make this one special. The branches in the foreground are a great eye-catcher that leads into the picture. The forest floor looks almost magical, colorful and the trees to the left are not dense enough to ruin the scene.
I think composition is great and makes a really interesting picture.
Lighting is great, just a little overexposure around the sun and a slight haze in the middle of the picture resulting from the angle the photo was taken (into the sun). I suppose you didn't use a NDGrad filter, that's why you made two seperate exposures.
I would have shot 5~10 mins later in order to give the sun time to hide a little more behind the trees. That way you could have got rid of the overexposed sun.
The color in the sky is not exaggerated, people who spend time outside know that such sunsets are occuring more often than one may think.
I miss a little crispness and sharpness throughout the whole scene, but that comes from the downscaling process. Applying special sharpening/downscaling methods would help add the amount of sharpness needed to make this one a true stunner.
Finally, I would have saturated the green tones on the forest floor (Photoshop, Selective color) a tad more, and maybe slightly boosted blacks would help to add more local contrast between the small plants and leaves.
All in all this is a truly inspiring and well-composed image that rivals the best on deviantART. Maybe there are some technical flaws but they can never diminish the magnificence of this composition.
You can be proud of this photo! And I really love it. Period!