how to improve

by Ed
(Thailand)

while living in thailand i bought my first dslr camera (nikon d3000)... i love it, but wow! - alot of functions. grrr trying to understand all of them

i took this shot as storm clouds were coming in. Any ideas how to bring out the storm clouds in the background and still keep the green from the countryside?
Honestly i dont remember what my shutter speed and aperture was. What should i be using for shots like this?

I just bought a tri-pod today and wanting to use it so bad, but rain keeps me indoors - dont think i want the new camera taking underwater pictures just yet :)

also, any reason my pictures are so large in filesize? (this one i had to export for email setting in lightroom) normally each picture is 6mb or higher..???