Reply to "What Color to Paint your river base?"

Ok, so lets look at the scene I am going to work on soon. 

This was a phase one area on the layout that I knew I would come back and adjust:

These shots show that areas of the sky are too dark. Below the upper bridge:

So next I attempted to adjust the lighting above this area:

This was the best I could do lighting wise, and I realized that I may need helper lights to take photos in this area.

Next was the lower deck bridges... the Gargrave track ties seem too big. Any votes for going with Atlas here? If I do than I should get rid of the 1X2 inch deck bridge base that is just painted black... it fools the eyes but does not let light through to the creek.