Which visual mods are you using? I'm using Climates of Tamriel and I enjoy what it does. I got it mostly for the weather systems it adds, but it tweaks the lighting as well.
In the screen shots you posted, my favorite part of the visual mod is how it makes the firelight more red.
Something else you can try if you really are trying to squeeze performance out of your PC is totally disabling AA and use FXAA. FXAA can somewhat blur textures and make the menus look a little funny, but I used it for a long time before I was able to upgrade my graphics card.