Did somebody say FILTERS!? Sorry, I have a Filter fetish. So now, it's nice to see you've come to The Dark Side, Kaiser.

Some tips and tricks with filters: As you already know, you can Render your Clouds, but you can also Render Difference Clouds right after that for a darker background, and it'll almost look like lightning. Then you can utilize the other Filters, like Artistic, and Brush Strokes. Feel free to mess around with them and for touching up with a brush, try to find an Abstract or Fractal brush, as it goes well with that.

What you did there with the red and all that is kind of Fractal, and that may even be a brush, you just need to work a little more on your blending and depth. ( Transparency IMO :mog: ) Keep it up and you'll find your specialty and then you can spit out Images like nothing.

Also, you can actually color your clouds too! Just go to Image > Adjustments and look for Color Balance, then choose a color of your liking and THEN you can use even more Filters on it.