Hi Don,
I'm glad I missed your post before, because now I can see a path of improvement. I was going to mention what I saw as a sort of cloudy artifact, bang in the middle of the image, just an annoying way the light played on the water I guess. This last image does not have that, and is pdg.
The second image, however, the trees on the right (my right) look better, maybe to do with the red berries in the central patch, but they seem to be more 3d than the final, yellower version'
wrt composition, I think I would try cropping about a sixth of the image from the left. The simple way of getting rid of the shadows. It also moves the white cloud, where I think your eye is drawn (on reflection, its the patch of blue sky above that cloud), at the bottom of the distant tree 'V', to a better position, I reckon.
Thanks for sharing the processes.
Best wishes,
Ray